Metempsychosis
by nariai
Summary: About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I got somehow reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]
1. What A Mad World

_Edited on the 14th of July 2017. Chapter one and two have been put together.  
_

* * *

 **I just couldn't get this idea out of my head, thus I had been planning this story for a while now. I love Tokyo Ghoul.**

 **Personally, I believe that the anime and manga have a potential for really good fanfiction and I'm quite disappointed that this fandom has so little of them(I mean fanfictions in general.).**

 **I enjoy writing self-insert stories (To be honest, it's more of an OC-Insert), so this isn't my first one.**

 **For now the rating for this story will be 'T', however, I might change it to 'M' later.**

 **Please leave a review.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Tokyo Ghoul or any of its characters.  
**

 **Summary: About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I got somehow reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]**

 **Have fun.**

* * *

 _Metempsychosis, the wandering of souls, implies that the same soul inhabits in succession the bodies of different beings, both men and animals. The word is derived from Ancient Greek and the more appropriate term for it is 'transmigration'._

* * *

 _Metempsychosis_

 _Chapter 1  
_

 _What A Mad World_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where A Tragedy Begun_

* * *

 _"In a mad world, only the mad are sane."_

 _― Akira Kurosawa_

 _''I was not the protagonist of a novel or anything. I was a college student who liked to read, like you could find anywhere. But if, for argument's sake, you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be...a tragedy.''_

 _― Kaneki Ken, Tokyo Ghoul  
_

* * *

There was once a quote in my favorite manga that claimed if the main character should ever be the protagonist of a novel, then it would certainly end up being a tragedy. It was the introduction of the whole story and managed to capture my attention for many reasons. Among them the fact that even though it did not fit like two puzzle pieces, it did seem to represent my life perfectly.

After all, I was only sixteen years old when I died. Yeah, you've read right, _when I died._

I was dead. Or at least I should have been dead.

I could still remember the sight of a huge wave rising from the sea, towering meters above the ground. Together with a few friends I had decided to visit the beach that day, therefore I had one of the many first row seats for the destruction that was to come.

During my supposedly last day on earth I witnessed the most magnificent sight ever. There was nothing out there that could compare to the beauty of an impending natural catastrophe.

A tsunami, nonetheless.

One my friends had pointed at the horizon and alerted us to the destruction that was to come. Water rose higher and higher above the ground and I could do nothing but stare at that cerulean blue wall that continued moving in my direction.

Faster than I thought possible, the wave clashed with the land and continued tearing its way across the small beach. Nothing could oppose it, everything that stood in nature's way was eradicated; trees ripped from the ground along with their roots, houses shattered into tiny pieces. But it were the humans who colored the once so beautiful water with their blood, some dying instantly and some not.

Even though I _knew_ that I would die, I still clung so very _desperately_ to my own life. Foolishly, I tried to hide behind a small hut, pulling one of my friends with me. A pipe pierced my body as punishment for this idiotic behavior.

Maybe it was this foolishness that led to what happened afterwards?

It hurt, _a lot_. The pipe was made from some sort of metal, not sure if you wanted to know that. Perhaps, the more interesting thing was that the object managed to pierce my right lung. The sensation of blood flooding my lung was nothing pleasant. Especially, because it continued flowing upwards into my mouth. I never did like the metallic taste of blood.

Once again, the irony was just too cruel.

I couldn't remember if I drowned in the water or my own blood. Possibly, both of them.

But I did know that I didn't die immediately after the water collided with me. I wasn't that lucky.

Panic mixed with desperation and fear and prompted me to _fight._ My legs and arms moved, trying to push me up to the surface. The sad thing was that I had no idea _where_ that actually was. Sharp objects cut my sensitive skin, crimson blood changing the water around me into a murky brown. Violently, the currents ripped me into all directions and slowly my eyesight blurred.

All of my senses were robbed from me and a frightening confusion took over my entire being.

Still, there was one thing that made the whole situation even worse. _I just couldn't breathe._

One moment I was there, the other I was gone.

And yet my story, unlike many others, did not end there. It did not end with my death. No, my death was just the starting point of a new beginning.

The transition wasn't gradual or anything like that. After I died—It was still weird to think about it like that.—none of the normal bullshit happened. You know, like golden gates, a reception or even an entrance to hell. One second I was drowning, the next I found myself being squeezed through a way to tight space.

It was uncomfortable, shocking and so many other things. And it did not get any better for a (long?) while.

And when the squeezing sensation finally stopped, I faced a new pile of problems.

 _It was cold. Freezing cold._

Why couldn't I _see?_ Where was I?

 _Oh god, I couldn't breathe._

The stinging sensation at my bottom did nothing to calm me down. Did someone just hit me? And wait, was someone actually holding me? Who were these people?

Could someone please shut the wailing infant up?

I never realized that I was one of those 'wailing _infants'._

I couldn't really tell if the fact that my mind soon shut down was more of a blessing or a curse. But as the shadows of sleep wrapped around, I started to hope that all this was just a really bad dream.

A nightmare, if I had to guess.

It didn't really matter because as long as this whole situation was just a dream, I could still wake up. I could still wake up in my bed and find out that all this had been just a nightmare.

I never believed in god. If I did, I would have had to accept the fact that I was one of his least liked creations. Maybe, even hated by him.

Because at the end, I did _wake up_ again and it turned out that all this wasn't just a dream. No, it was my new reality.

* * *

Autumn announced its presence with a heavy barrage of rain. Between the constant confusion and fear my death left me and the disbelieve I felt at the thought of being reborn I noticed little of what was happening around me.

When I was reborn—And wasn't that a frightening thought?—I had no idea what was going on around me. All I felt was confusion, sadness and an all encompassing fear.

The air caressing my skin seemed to be freezing and my infant eyes left one of my senses crippled. The voices that surrounded me were strange and unknown, thus they did nothing to calm me down.

And then there was the fact that I had _died._ I remembered it more clearly than anything else.

What was happening? Why was it happening? What did I do to deserve it?

The stress was too much for me and my new body. I fell asleep and didn't truly wake up for months.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I noticed that I woke up once again about a day later. Only half conscious, I basked in the fact that for a moment I was free of the nightmares that plagued me for what felt like an eternity. Not even an hour later I succumbed to the weakness of my young body and fell into a restless sleep.

Days blurred into weeks and nothing changed. I slept and dreamed. Woke up screaming and never truly managed to escape the nightmares of my death. Even awake my thoughts were still plagued by the trauma I had experienced.

Haunted by nightmares and tormented by my own thoughts, I lived inside my own living hell.

Thankfully, things started to change when my new body reached the age of four months. The constant unconscious state I had found myself in since I entered my second life drifted away. Staying awake became easier and opened new possibilities for me.

My eyesight improved and I started observing my new family. It was still very much awkward to call them that.

I already had a family. A mother and a father.

But this family, this young couple, so clearly loved me. Would it really be so wrong to enjoy this new life?

Especially as I now had the one thing I had always desired; a sibling, a twin brother.

Would it be wrong of me to take this second chance that was unwillingly thrust upon me?

* * *

Alright, this just needs to be mentioned. Breast feeding was one of the weirdest experiences I had ever had to go through. Right after being born, of course. Nothing could trump _that._

I was just happy that my new mother had relatively small breasts. I could imagine some demented god trying to smoother me with them.

What a way to die for a second time.

The only thing worse would have been dying by drowning in her milk. Now that would be ironic.

I was somewhat glad that I missed most of the breast feeding. Not only did the whole experience seem awkward to me, but the milk tasted like absolutely nothing. I wasn't sure if this was due to underdeveloped taste buds or if the liquid truly didn't have a taste.

Even now, drinking it for what felt like the thousandth time, I still couldn't stand it.

On the bright side, Ken—My _twin_ brother, can you believe it? I had a _twin_ brother.— who was situated opposite of me, seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. He even held onto our mother's breast with his small hands.

Nope, I certainly won't be going there. It would feel too much as if I was doing something wrong.

''Ken!'' The woman who had given birth to me shouted loudly as pain distorted her face. My gaze shifted away from her and towards my brother who had probably thought that biting down would be funny.

Our gums were still toothless, so she could consider herself lucky. I did not want to imagine the pain she would have felt if he had teeth in his mouth.

The little brat actually had the gall to giggle loudly and practically spit some of the milk in his mother's face. Afterwards he latched onto her once again and continued his third meal that day.

The woman sighted in exasperation. ''At least you're gentler than your brother, my sweet little girl.''

It was that very moment that I noticed how _young_ she was. Maybe twenty years old. A mother of twins.

The woman looked tired.

Her pale skin accentuated the dark circles under her eyes and it seemed as if a lot of time had passed since she last had the chance to properly take care of herself.

A small part of me couldn't help feeling sorry for her. I doubted that our conception was planned.

But it's not as if she could blame us for it.

''Finished?'' My new mother asked with a gentle voice. Obviously, we did not answer her.

One arm somehow managed to hold the two of us against her upper body, while the other carefully angled us upwards.

Yay, it was time to burp. Do note the sarcasm.

The impressive thing was that my new mother somehow managed to take care of the both of us at the same time. Not once did her hold on us slacken.

That was some serious coordination talent.

* * *

Time flew by quickly, and the next thing I knew, I was six months old, pulling myself up and sitting for the first time in this new life. The amount of strength this little action cost me was unbelievable. When I finally finished the task I had given myself a few days ago, I felt tired enough to instantly fall asleep.

This new body's weakness was astounding. In all my life I had never felt so _helpless_ before. I used to value my independence more than anything else, so finding myself in this kind of situation was _horrific_.

Delighted giggling and babbling distracted me. Looking up from my pink, flower decorated bottoms, I smiled at the sight of my twin who was positioned at the other side of our crib and gazing at me with something akin to pride. If children as young as him were even capable of feeling such an emotion, anyway.

He was sitting as well. The little brat actually mastered doing it before me. Honestly, the fact that a not even one year old boy managed to best me in something as _easy_ as this cost me a small part of my pride.

In my defense, I could have tried learning it sooner but I decided to follow his lead. I knew nothing about babies and their development and it wouldn't have done me any good if my new parents started to question my abnormal growth. Particularly, because I had spend the first four months of this new life in a catatonic state.

And that was also something I often wondered about. Every normal parent would have panicked when their child showed obvious signs of some illness. After waking up in this world I spent a long time mourning what I had lost and ignoring my new reality. This put me into a rather unresponsive state which should have worried my new parents.

So why hadn't they taken me to a doctor? I was sure that they had noticed my abnormal behavior and had been worried about me. Every normal person would have visited the hospital with their obviously ill infant.

 _My new parents did nothing._

This even led me to believe that they didn't care about the two of us, but I dismissed those thoughts quickly. If they did not care about us, then our parents would have long since abandoned us. Instead, both of them treated us with a gentleness that implied that we were made of porcelain. Sometimes, our father would look at us as if he couldn't quite believe that we were actually there.

Maybe they didn't have much money? Our apartment had certainly seen better days. Not that it was bad or anything, but it still could have been way nicer.

Now that I thought about it, I didn't think that my new father had a job. He spend most of his time at home, taking care of the two of us. Him being unemployed meant that my new mother was the only one bringing money home.

And if I had to guess, it wasn't a lot of money.

Why didn't my new father have a job? Did my new parents decide that it would be better for one of them to stay home to raise us?

Still, that did not explain his regular disappearances. Once every two weeks he would be gone for the whole night. I only noticed this because I wasn't asleep during one of those disappearances and greeted him when he came back from his nightly endeavors. It had rained that night and my new mother ushered him into the bathroom the moment his foot stepped over our threshold.

I would never forget how tense she had been that night. How she couldn't quite meet my new father's eyes when they resided in the same room. How she flinched when he gave her a small stack of money.

I knew that it wasn't much, but in our situation that shouldn't have mattered. Not while she had two children to take care of.

The money was put into a small metallic container and hidden under the kitchen sink. The woman never deigned to touch it again.

''You did it, Rei-chan!'' A feminine voice said. Akemi, that was my new mother's name, was standing in the doorway of our nursery. Delight shone brightly in her eyes as she rushed forward and stopped moving in front of our crib. ''Look at the both of you.''

Akemi—I needed to stop calling her that. She was my mother now. Not 'Akemi', 'That woman' or 'New mother'.—leaned down and took little Ken into her arms. My twin giggled happily at our _mother's_ attention. ''You're a good little boy, huh? Just as your sister is a good little girl. My two sunshines.''

I didn't think that anyone ever called me a 'good little girl' before. Well, there was a first for everything.

 _Mother_ smiled down at me and proceeded to look at her wrist watch. ''The both of you must be hungry.'' She put Ken into the crib once again. ''I will go heat your dinner. I'm sure it tastes better warm than cold.''

Kaneki Akemi was a gentle soul. Sometimes it seemed as if she didn't quiet know what to do with us, but that must have been a first time mother's charm. She was still quite young and inexperienced, however, that did not mean that she neglected us.

 _After all, Kaneki Akemi was a_ good _mother._

If only I had known.

* * *

My new father's name was Kaneki Ryota.

He was half Japanese and half Swedish. I wouldn't have known that if it weren't for the photo of his mother decorating a wall in our living room. She had been a lovely woman. With her golden blond hair and stormy gray eyes, she could have charmed any man she wanted.

Father inherited her eyes, as did Ken and I.

I wasn't a vain person, but I had to admit that compared to my previous dull brown eyes, these ones were beautiful. A light gray that sometimes darkened like clouds just before a storm.

At least Ken's eyes did that. I couldn't take my gaze off them. In the lightning of our living room they seemed more mesmerizing than ever. Regrettably, I was forced to look away when the brat decided that it would be funny to stick one of his fingers into my left eye.

The shriek that passed my lips was as undignified as it was childish. However, I couldn't help it. Having a finger stuck in your eye hurt like hell.

 _(If only I had known.)_

''Ken.'' Father raised his voice only slightly. There was no need for shouting, we were still physically and supposedly mentally too young to truly differ between right and wrong. His large hand clasped around my brother's smaller one and pulled it away from my face. ''Don't do that. You're hurting your sister.''

Yeah, he did not get a thing of what father was saying. Ken only put the finger that had previously been inside my eye into his mouth— _Eww. Disgusting._ —and turned his head left. He started mumbling to himself as he gazed at the TV in front of us. I doubted he understood whatever they were talking about.

It was some popular talk-show with a very famous moderator. _Takeshi Haruka._

The weird thing was, that I had never heard about this man before. Neither did I know his show. In my previous life—You have no idea how much it hurt to think about it this way.—I may not have been the most up to date person, but I did know my fair share about the current pop

If I hadn't already seen the date on a calendar a few months prior, I might have suspected that I had been reborn into the future. But I wasn't.

Currently, we had the year _1996._ Only three years before my first birth.

With how famous this Takeshi person seemed to be, I should have heard about him before.

I never did.

It were such small things that unsettled me. We had a lot of stuff at home, mostly food and drinks, from brands I had never heard of. Some of the technology seemed too _advanced_ for this decade.

There was something very, very _wrong_ with this place.

And yet I still clung to the hope that everything was fine. That I was still in my known when and where.

 _That one day I would meet my family once again._

Father shifted slightly and for a moment I thought I would fall from my position on his knee. Ken's squeal indicated that he must have experienced the same thing.

Meanwhile, father wasn't bothered or even worried. His right arm was wrapped around the both of us and held us in place. At the same time his other hand reached out for the remote on the small table before us and turned the TV's volume louder.

The expression on his face was very alarming.

 _'BREAKING NEWS',_ was written boldly across the screen, just before a middle aged reporter replaced it. The man was gravely pale, his mouth set into a thin line. Whatever he was meant to report wouldn't be pleasant.

 _'Good evening, Japan. We interrupt the program with a theme of outmost importance. Less than an hour ago an attack on the popular Ringo Restaurant occurred. There are already five casualties confirmed and more expected. No visitor or worker has been left unharmed._

 _The perpetrator is supposedly a_ ghoul.'

Wait...what?

 _'We hope that our coworker Chieko Amaya can tell us more directly from the crime scene.'_ He fumbled with a microphone. _'Chieko-san, can you hear me? If you do, please tell us more about the current situation.'_

There was a slight rumbling noise and the screen flickered. Then it split into two; on one side was the middle-aged reporter, on the other a young woman appeared. _'Good evening, Keiichi-san.'_ There were many police cars and panicked civilians behind her. The windows of the Ringo Restaurant were stained red. _'As you see, the situation here is very uncontrolled. Many wounded still haven't been treated and the police doesn't know what to do. They try to keep the masses calm.'_

 _'Could you tell us what happened?'_ Keiichi questioned. He looked nervous, sweat was gathering on his temple and his eyes kept flickering in all directions.

 _'Precisely at 7 p.m. the doors of The Ringo Restaurant had been locked, trapping all its occupants inside. It was then that the perpetrator struck. From what the police gathered, it seems to be a ghoul by the code name Hebi._

 _The culprit managed to escape the crime scene before any help could arrive._

 _He's still on the run. I repeat, he's still on the run.'_

Was this some kind of joke? It had to be.

The camera moved away from the female reporter to show a pair of men exiting the restaurant. They were wearing long coats and each of them carried a silver suitcase in their right hand. _'Four CCG Investigators arrived at the crime scene minutes before the police. Two of them have gone missing, most probably hunting the ghoul responsible for yet another tragedy. As of now, there is nothing else known. I will notify you the moment I hear something new.'_

Keiichi appeared on full screen once again. He started summarizing all the intelligence Chieko was able to give us, but I wasn't listening anymore.

This surely had to be some kind of joke. This just couldn't be happening. No, no, no. Oh god, was this meant to be some cruel joke? It had to be one.

I could accept being reborn in my own world—Universe?—but this was absurd. Being reincarnated into a manga or anime should have been impossible. No, it was impossible. Whatever higher entity had sent me here couldn't have been so cruel.

 _Tokyo Ghoul._

One of the most fucked up manga I had ever read. The word 'tragic' wasn't strong enough to describe it. I remembered loving and hating it in equal measures. Especially after they killed Ka...ne..ki.

Oh my fucking god. _Kaneki Ken. I had a twin brother who was named Kaneki Ken._

If this...if this was real, then I had been reborn as the twin sister of the _Kaneki Ken._ One of the most tragic fictional characters to ever exist. I doubted that this universe had two Kaneki Ken's running around the place and even if it did I didn't think that I was that lucky.

 _Black spots started to appear before my eyes. The blood that rushed to my head stopped any sound from registering in my mind._

Why was this happening? I didn't want to be Kaneki Ken's twin sister. I never asked for any of this. Maybe it wasn't real? It could be some TV show. Live action?

 _My vision faded completely. Someone grabbed my arms before I collided with the floor._

What did I do to deserve this? Why did it have to be Tokyo Ghoul? Almost every other fandom would have been better than this one.

Provided that this truly was Tokyo Ghoul and Ken was the _Kaneki Ken_ , it might actually be better for me to murder us both. Compared to what the future held in store for us, death would have been a blessing.

What did that make me? The fact that I was considering murdering a baby and committing suicide afterwards.

 _Hysterical laughter. Was it mine?_

The fictional world of Tokyo Ghoul had now become factual. Was I mad?

 _The darkness grabbed me like a vicious lover. Unwelcome and fear-inducing._

 _When would I finally wake up from this nightmare?_

* * *

I was mad. I just had to be.

There was no other explanation for my current predicament. Being reborn was something that I could accept. The concept of an afterlife had always been believable to me and never did the idea cross my mind that I would just _disappear_ after death.

I didn't know _where_ I would go, but there had to be someplace for the dead. Be it hell, heaven or a completely new life, I always believed that I wouldn't just cease to exist.

The reason for why I just couldn't easily accept that I had been reborn was that I hadn't been ready to _die._

I had been only sixteen years old, not even out of school. Suddenly, I had to face the fact that I had lost everything. My family, my home, my future. There was not a thing left.

And lets not forget about my death. I was sure we all agreed that it wasn't a pleasant one. If I could make a list of ways I would wish to die of, drowning would have been among the last few options.

Accepting that I died and lost everything in the process hadn't been easy. Accepting that I had been reborn into a fictional universe was outright impossible.

My sanity must have completely dwindled. I could only guess that I must have been admitted into some mental institution and was currently laying in some bed, trapped in my own little world.

While not enjoyable, it would certainly explain everything.

After all, reincarnating into another universe couldn't be possible.

 _It just couldn't be real._

* * *

Kaneki Akemi's biggest dream was becoming a doctor.

She had to give up on that dream when Ken and I were born. There was no time for studying. Not enough money for her little family to survive. With her being the only one who could bring money home, there was no time for anything but work.

Somehow, I knew that a small part of her resented us for her misfortune.

If it weren't for us, she would be studying at a university and fulfilling her dreams. She would have time to meet up with friends in the evening and gossip about meaningless things.

Instead the young woman—She seemed to be about twenty-one years old now.—had a harsh job that payed her less than we actually needed. Akemi woke up early in the morning and came back home in the afternoon. Then she let our father have a little time for himself and fed both me and Ken.

During the evening she had about two hours of freedom. She liked reading some of our father's books. Most times _mother_ fell asleep doing just that.

This was a routine she repeated each day. Only Sundays were off. But even then she couldn't truly rest. There were two infants that needed to be taken care of.

Father left the house on almost every Sunday. From morning till evening he was nowhere to be seen.

My parents' relationship suffered severely from that.

''You need to calm down, Akemi!'' Father's voice resonated through the whole apartment. His anger so profound that I could almost feel it.

''Calm down!? Calm down!?'' The sound of glass shattering followed mother's screech. ''Do not tell me to calm down! I have had enough of this! Coming home each day to find you lazing around! You do nothing. _Nothing!''_

Silence reigned our home for a second. Then another one. ''What do you want me to do? You refuse to use the money I acquire and it would be too dangerous for me to get proper job. Besides, we both know that one of us has to stay home with the children!''

''What we both know is that everything that leaves your mouth are weak excuses!'' I could imagine how she threw her hands up and gestured wildly in all directions. ''My sister is pregnant. She's staying at home and could take care of them for a while.''

I felt a small hand twisting my shirt. Ken was trembling slightly and big tears were streaming down his cheeks. ''Wei? Why angwy?''

My heart broke. He did not deserve this. A child shouldn't have to witness its parents arguing like that. ''Is alight, Ken. Is alight.''

We were inside our nursery, in a far corner of the room. My sweet brother had deemed this place to be the safest. Children could be so irrational sometimes.

His small ten month's old body leaned into mine. There was nothing I could do but try to sooth him with my presence and touch.

I pulled his head onto my lap and started to stroke his short hair gently. He always liked it when our mother did that. I hoped my touch would calm him just as hers would have.

''Wei?'' The little boy pointed at the door in question.

I wasn't sure what he meant, so I continued stroking his hair and hoped that the loud shouts would soon cease to exist. To comfort Ken, I even started to hum a lullaby my first mother used to sing for me.

His trembling lessened, but the tears continued to flow.

''...ou truly are out of you mind! There is no way for us to leave them with your sister!'' Father paused to take a breath. ''Perhaps you want them to be in danger. Perhaps you just want to get rid of the three of us!''

The next thing I heard was a loud slap. For once I thought it was deserved. What father had said was a low blow.

 _Mother did not deserve this._

''Don't you dare say something like this ever again! I gave up on everything for you and our children. _On everything.''_ There was the rattling of keys. Mother's footsteps headed down the hallway.

The entrance door opened and closed with a loud thud.

Father turned off the light in the hallway and living room.

In the darkness of the night silence surrounded us once again. We did not dare to make a sound.


	2. Claim Your Weapons

_Edited on the 25th of July 2017.  
_

* * *

 **Qoheleth: In your review you have asked me if I think that this story's summary is truly 'K' rated. This was very surprising to me because I didn't really know which part of it you considered to not be 'K' rated.** **The only thing that stood out to me was the word 'screwed'. To be honest, this might not be a 'friendly' word but it isn't all that bad either. Nowadays, many kids know it and its meaning. This fact might not be good, however, it's true. Besides, Tokyo Ghoul isn't an anime an audience that can't take some mild cuss words watches.**

 **On another note, there are exactly 8,526 fan fictions that have a form of the word _'screw'_ in their title or summary. Right now I don't feel the need to change anything about what you have pointed out. If more people have the same opinion as you and share it with me, I might rethink this.**

 **Still, thank you for sharing your view with me.**

 **anaisonfire: Thank you for the kind review. And to answer your question, Rei still hasn't come to terms or accepted that she has been reborn in Tokyo Ghoul. She may be on the way to some kind of acceptance, but a lot of time will pass till she will truly come to terms with it. The reason why you don't see her freaking out anymore is because of the time jumps I make. Rei has a new life to live and thus she has to partly force herself into being calm. I know all this sounds really confusing but I hope the future chapters will explain everything a little better.  
**

 **sasuhina542000**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. Self-Insert**

 **Enjoy.  
**

* * *

 _Chapter 2  
_

 _Claim Your Weapons_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _How The Prey Survived  
_

* * *

 _"Fear cuts deeper than swords."_  
 _― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones_

* * *

Three months before my second birthday I was confronted by a ghoul for the first time. I used the word 'confronted' because it sounded nicer than 'the motherfucker tried to eat me'.

That day was meant to be a happy one. Father and mother had another argument during which the former decided to storm out of the apartment before he did something he would come to regret later. That might have not sounded too good, but it forced our mother to do something that did not happen very often.

She had to take us outside.

In my previous life— _cringe_ —I had been a shameless introvert. My family had to literarily pull me out of my room and push me outside, only then my skin got to enjoy some of the sun.

But after spending _months_ inside of our apartment, without the choice to actually see the world, I felt like a drowning woman taking a lifesaving breath when I first stepped over our threshold. 'Stepped' might have been a little exaggerated. As a seven months old I had just started to crawl, walking had not been a possibility back then.

Since that first expedition we had been allowed to go outside our apartment about a handful of times. This made me miss the sun and fresh air more than anything else.

In some ways Ken was lucky. He was too young to truly notice that there was something _wrong_ with our family. My twin was aware of the fact that our parents fought a lot and he also wondered why that was, but he didn't know that things could be different. Ken didn't realize that our parents weren't completely sane or that our father seemed to be involved in some shady business.

I mean, who locked their own kids up in a small apartment in Tokyo? Who did not take them to a doctor when they were obviously sick? Who preferred to leave two toddlers alone at home rather than take them outside?

Mother had done that on a few occasions. She stopped leaving us alone after Ken drew on the wall of our living room with his favorite crayons. Afterwards my parents had to repaint the whole living room.

I was happy that they stopped leaving us alone. There was only so much I could do to prevent Ken from getting himself in some huge mess.

The kid liked climbing on furniture way too much.

I could already see our future before me. While he would be the brother who constantly got into trouble—Unknowing of the fact he was doing something wrong until it was too late. That explained the whole Rize thing. In the series he was just too nice and impressionable.—I would have to be the sister that constantly saved him.

I couldn't wait for the fun to finally begin. Do note the sarcasm.

It surprised me how long it took for the alternate Kaneki to get into so much trouble. With his whole policy of preferring to be hurt than hurting others, the alternate version of my twin should have died before he even reached the age of eleven.

Hide must have been the reason for why he survived that long.

Now I had become that reason.

Though I seemed to attract as much danger as Ken did. I mean, who just gets grabbed in the middle of Tokyo and dragged into an alley without anyone noticing? Mother certainly did notice that she lost me in the crowd, but she did not expect that a ghoul would try to eat me.

If Akemi had, she wouldn't have taken us out of the apartment in the first place.

But it did happen.

We were walking down a busy street not far away from our home. Mother held Ken in her arms, his head leaned against her shoulder. She did not trust him to not run off the moment he could, so she preferred to have him completely under control. The woman was too petite and physically weak to carry the both of us for longer periods of time, so she just took hold of my left hand.

Her pace was just slow enough so that I did not have to actually run after her. People kept bumping into us like a constant stream of rain. Most did not even watch out for the small child walking among them.

A harsh world indeed.

Our small family was walking across a street, the light just having turned green, when an unfamiliar hand grabbed my right arm. The person harshly pulled me away from my mother and into his own arms.

How no one noticed a child getting kidnapped was beyond me.

But they didn't and the man that took me made sure they wouldn't. His arms tighten around me and he pushed my face into his chest. There was almost no air to breathe and should I have screamed the sound would have ended up being muffled.

Through the crowd's chatter, I could hear the desperate cries of my mother. ''Rei! Rei, where are you?!''

I couldn't answer.

The man fastened his pace and soon disappeared in the sea of people around us.

I guessed I could consider myself lucky due to the fact the man did not stink. Otherwise, I might gagged and even ended up throwing up.

Choking on my own vomit. What a _pleasant_ way to die.

My kidnapper _—_ A pedophile or did he hope someone would pay ransom for me? _—_ walked down another street and then turned left into an alley.

There he threw me onto the ground harshly. My hands and knees skidded across the dark asphalt and ended up being wounded for the first time in this new life. Small trails of blood trickled down my skin.

The unfamiliar sensation of pain hit this new body harder than I thought possible. In my previous life I had broken two or three bones. Compared to a broken bone, the pain I now felt should have been nothing.

Still, a few unbidden tears streamed down my cheeks.

''I haven't even done anything yet.'' A disgustingly deep voice...growled? ''I just love it when they cry.''

A laugh. A mad laugh echoed through the alleyway. It was the kind of laughter that made you want to giggle and pee yourself at the same time.

I was afraid, more than I had ever been in this new life. Mother and Father had protected me until now. As my parents they would have never hurt me.

But now I was at the mercy of this unknown monster, my body still too young and weak to even consider running away.

I had no other choice but to turn around and face the threat before me.

Promptly, I reassessed the whole situation and decided that I wasn't just afraid, I was _terrified_ because once again I was staring death in the face. The only difference was that instead of a beautiful tsunami, a bloodthirsty ghoul stood before me. His vermilion eyes gleamed through the holes of his elephant mask.

The ghoul's breathing was labored and I just knew there was saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth.

 _He wanted to eat me._

I might have peed a little into my diaper. Trembling legs shuffled backwards and my back hit a cold trash bin.

When did I start sobbing so loudly?

''Oh, this is fantastic!'' He cackled like a hyena. ''Fear always makes the prey taste better. Cry louder and louder and louder. I want to hear you _screaming!''_

Wing like appendages grew out of the masked man's back and his glee only intensified. Animal like sounds passed his unseen lips, muffled only slightly by the mask on his face.

No sound left my mouth. Trembling hands covered my tiny ears, trying and failing to keep the laughter from being heard.

His intimidating figure cast a shadow on me. If it weren't for his red, _red_ eyes, I would have thought he was an angel. His greenish ukaku kagune was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A pair of wings that spanned for a few feet left and right, slowly moving up and down. Gleaming like diamonds in the sunlight, they gave the impression of being alive.

Maybe he was a _fallen_ angel? Deprived of the love of his father and tainted by sin, this creature had become a monster.

Did that not sound poetic?

Certainly preferable to the truth that stood before me. I doubted that I was the first victim of this ghoul that amused himself with eating children.

The monster was only a few inches away from me, an arms length at most. Prolonging my death amused him. I could see the sick pleasure he derived from this act in his mad eyes. ''I love children. They taste _so pure._ And you, my sweet little girl, smell better than all my other food.''

 _Food._ That's all I was to him. A means to survive and derive pleasure from.

 _He would eat me._

Rip my already petite body into small pieces and devour my innards. Did ghouls also eat the bones? At the end of the day, would there be nothing left of me?

 _I did not want to die again._

This one fleeting thought prompted me to scream out loud. Panic had set in a while ago, thus no true words left my mouth, only terror filled screams.

 _Zō_ , that was probably his codename among the CCG, made a pleased noise. One of his hands reaching out to me and grabbing a short strand of my black hair. The ghoul sniffed it and hummed in approval. ''You smell _so_ good.''

 _Did I?,_ I thought hysterically. Normally, receiving compliments was really nice and yet I could have lived on happily without ever hearing this one.

He pulled me forward roughly and my small body collided with his chest. His nose found its way to my throat and he repeated his sniffing action. Instinctively, my body tried to fight against the predator, kicking and trying to free itself. My screams more desperate than they were before echoed through the narrow alley. I was nothing but a toddler, a weak child that could never hope to win against an adult ghoul, so I knew that if something or someone did not interfere right now, I would die. This was my last chance.

My saving grace came in the form of a teenage boy with a silver suitcase. A flash of yellow and I was free, my small body falling onto the hard ground and shuffling backwards before I gave a conscious order to do so.

The ghoul had managed to escape the investigator's attack unscathed. His laughter once again echoing through the otherwise silent alley. It reminded me of the Joker's laughter in one of the movies.

I did not find it as amusing as when I had watched the movie with a small group of friends.

''Yamada, go help the girl. Bring her to safety.'' A man I hadn't noticed before he spoke up. He looked older than the other investigator, maybe in his mid-forties.

The boy nodded his head. ''Hai, Homura-san.''

He didn't even manage to take a step in my direction when a spike of...something almost pierced his left leg. The young investigator jumped out of the way just in time. ''You didn't think I would just let you take my new toy, did you, sweet cheeks?''

 _A cackle._

''No, no, no. She's mine. But your arrival is quite fortunate.'' The ghoul's head tilted to the right as if he was thinking about something. ''You, boy, will be the perfect appetizer. And your...ah boss will make a fine meal for the others. They might even fight for him.''

 _More laughter._

''Get the girl out of here!'' The older investigator shouted and opened his case. A long spiky quinke flew out of it and targeted Zō. The ghoul dodged easily and a hacking sound left his mouth.

He had chocked on his own laughter. That did not stop him from mocking the investigators. ''Human meat, human meat, whom shall I first eat?''

God, I wanted to be home. Why did I ever think it would be a good idea to go out for a walk on the ghoul infested streets of Tokyo? Would these investigators die too? Would it be my fault? Perhaps the ghoul would be too full after eating those two men and I wouldn't end up being devoured?

Trapped in my own morbid thoughts, I never noticed the young investigator approaching me. Yamada arrived in front of me, a bloody wound on his cheek and his shirt torn on the left side. There weren't any major wounds on his body.

Despite the situation, the young man smiled at me. ''I'm Yamada Sai. What's your name, little girl?''

After quickly considering my options, I decided to tell him my name. He was my savior, without this man I would have been already dead. Giving him my name was the least I could do.

My voice was weak and trembled slightly. ''Rei. Kaneki Rei.''

''Rei-chan. That's such a pretty name.'' He raised his arms in a placating manner. ''Do you think I could pick you up?''

A nod was the only answer I could give him.

''Alright.'' His muscular arms wrapped themselves around my small body. ''I'll get you out of here, Rei-chan.''

And then he was running and dodging the kagune spikes send our way. My face hidden in the hollow of his neck and arms clenched around his shirt.

Nothing he did could block out the sound of battle though. The older investigator fought bravely against the ghoul. I hoped more than anything else that he would win.

He didn't.

Zō slipped away after Homura injured his stomach. A large splotch of blood was the only thing he left behind.

I never forgot his sick promise, carried to me by a gust of wind, interrupted only by occasional laughter.

My eyes widened in fear.

 _I'll come for you, my little girl._


	3. Can You Hold Me?

_Edited on the 25th of July 2017.  
_

* * *

 **There isn't really much I can say about my tardiness. I planned to update this chapter about a week ago, but I didn't have time because I went on a vacation with my mom. Sorry for the long wait. I will try updating the next chapters faster. Chapter five and six are almost ready. They only need some editing.**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]  
**

 **Have fun.**

* * *

 _Chapter 3  
_

 _Can You Hold Me?_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where She Fell Apart_

* * *

 _Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky_.

 _―_ _Pink Floyd_

* * *

People were gathering outside of the alley. A small crowd, mostly consisting of foolish teens who hoped to catch a glimpse of a bestial and mysterious ghoul, that tried to push its way towards the entrance of the alleyway. The next day they would gossip about their life-threatening experience at school and feel secretly pleased by all the attention sent their way.

If I hadn't still been in the middle of a panic attack, I might have taken a few seconds of my precious time to feel disgusted.

Unfortunately, I did not have the privilege of feeling anything but panic. My skin still prickled uncomfortably from the ghoul's touch and almost no air seemed to reach my lungs.

Letting out an irritated sigh, Yamada started to push his way through the crowd. Not once did his hold on me slacken and he used one of his hands to cover my head with his trench coat. In the background I could hear him murmuring reassuring words, but they were drowned out by the loud beating of my heart.

Surprisingly, an ambulance was already waiting for us. The paramedics searching for injured people among the crowd. When one of them, a young woman with bleached blonde hair, spotted us, she immediately diverted her partner's attention to the approaching investigator. Then she pushed her way through the sea of people and arrived at our side in record time. Her eyes rove over the investigator's silhouette, searching for any outward injuries.

Yamada smiled in relief and shook his head when the woman started to verbally inquire how he was feeling. ''I'm not the one you should worry about. Rei-chan needs to be checked for any injuries.''

It was then the the paramedic noticed me. Her eyes widened and she pointed towards the ambulance. ''We need to get her out of the crowd. She seems to be having a panic attack.''

The medic was right, of course. Shortness of breath, shaking, palpitations. All sings of a panic attack.

The young investigator elbowed a few people aside and managed to get us to the vehicle without any true trouble. There, he carefully sat me down inside of the ambulance and put both of his hands on my shoulders. ''Everything is going to be alright, Rei-chan. The nice lady will take care of you, ok?''

I felt touched. Yamada Sai was a really good man. He had risked his life to help a little girl and then continued helping her even though he probably wished to assist his partner in tracking the escapee.

Perhaps I should have told him to leave and that I would be alright by myself—He certainly deserved such a courtesy—but I didn't. No, just this once I allowed myself to act like the child I truly was. With a shacking and unsure voice, I asked, ''Stay?''

My heart was still beating faster than it should, tiny hands shacking badly. I knew he wouldn't say no to me, but feared such an outcome nonetheless. Like I mentioned before, the investigator was a good person and I doubted he could deny a young child in distress such a simple request.

He did not answer instantly. Slowly, his gaze moved away from my face and towards the female paramedic. A silent conversation seemed to take place between them. After she nodded subtly _―_ not subtly enough for me not to notice―his attention returned to me and he smiled. ''Of course, Rei-chan.''

Normally, I did not like people pitying me. At that moment I couldn't have cared any less.

Yamada positioned himself besides me and bumped his shoulder against mine in a comforting manner. ''Sakiko-san will look at your wounds. She won't hurt you, Rei-chan.''

I nodded my head numbly, still fighting to catch a breath. My hands moved on their own accord and positioned themselves on my thighs, palms up to show the paramedic the abrasions.

The woman―Sakiko-san? When had she introduced herself?―smiled and looked at me with gentle eyes. She had a first-aid kit at her feet and some gauze in her left hand. I could smell the antiseptic even from more than an arms length away.

''I'm going to count and each time I say 'one' you'll take a deep breath and by 'two' you'll let it out.'' A few centimeters, that was the distance between us now. ''Do you understand, Rei-chan?''

She ducked down a little so we were on eye-level, probably thinking that a child my age would understand a demonstration better than the previous explanation. Afterwards the paramedic said the word 'one' and breathed in.

''Two.'' She breathed out. ''One'' A deep breath in. ''Two.'' A deep breath out.

Soon I was following her example, trying to stabilize my erratic behavior. It was working, albeit slowly, but still working. While I did not doubt still being as pale as sheet of paper and my hands continued trembling slightly, my breathing and heart rate did get better.

I did not feel safe or reassured, but my panic was slowly subsiding. A relief that was.

''Good, good. Continue breathing like this.'' There was no need to tell me something like that. ''Yamada-san, you should continue counting. I will take a look at those nasty abrasions.''

Yamada Sai nodded his head and started counting without any protest. ''One, two, one, two...''

Meanwhile, Sakiko took one of my hands into her right one and started cleaning my wounds. It didn't start burning immediately, my blood had already clotted at some places, but when it finally did an unbidden hiss escaped my lips.

''Sorry, sweet pie. This needs to be cleaned.'' The woman muttered quietly. Did she just call me a sweet pie?

She totally did.

A hand caressed my head gently and Yamada's voice resonated through the air. ''It will be over soon. If you're a brave girl, Sakiko-san might even give you a pretty band aid.''

A pretty band aid? I guess a real little girl might have liked the idea of a flower patterned band aid covering her wounds.

I did not have it in me to pretend carrying about something like that. Yamada must have taken my silence as me trying to be brave.

The paramedic rewarded that 'braveness' with two giant yellow butterfly patterned band aids. One was smacked on each of my palms, carefully avoiding touching my abrasions with the sticky part.

Afterwards my bloody knees were cleaned. The abrasions on them were a little deeper but thankfully needed no stitching. Two more band aids found their way on my skin. This time they were blue with some kind of snowman on them.

''Now you look all shiny and new!'' Exclaimed the paramedic. She seemed way to happy, her lie easy to recognize through her forceful cheerfulness.

I knew that I did not look 'all shiny and new'.

Skin way too pale and sickly looking. Eyes wide and terrified. Clothes crumpled and bloodied in some places. Short hair disheveled in all directions.

Nope, I certainly did not look 'all shiny and new'.

''Thank you.'' Never had I spoken with such a tiny and vulnerable voice before.

"There is nothing to thank me for." The woman smiled and wiped some dirt off my cheek. "Are you harmed anywhere else? Does your head hurt?"

Luckily, I had not fallen on my head even once. A concussion could be easily ruled out. My physical injuries consisted only of a few abrasions. ''No.''

Sakiko nodded her head and leaned her body inside the vehicle, reaching out for something behind me. A grayish blanket was draped over my shoulders and wrapped around my front. ''Good, good. The blanket will keep you warm.'' Her head twisted in Yamada's direction. ''What about you, Yamada-san? Are you hurt? Do you feel lightheaded or have any unusual symptoms?''

The investigator rubbed his neck sheepishly. ''I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a few scratches.''

Narrowed eyes took in his whole form, a hand already reaching inside the first-aid kit. ''Let me see those 'few scratches'. I think it's imperative for me to treat them.''

''That truly wont be necessary, Sakiko-san.'' The smile on his face showed too many teeth and his voice deeper than before. ''I'm sure there are other people who could use your help. Such crowds are never safe. Soon enough there will be other injured to take care of.''

What was his problem?

I almost giggled at the thought of him being afraid of the antiseptic. As it was I still wasn't capable of such a positive emotion and action, thus I stayed silent and continued observing the adults.

Tightening her ponytail, the woman let out a exasperated sigh. ''Why do investigators always act in such ways? I'm paramedic, not a ghoul in disguise.''

Were investigators really _that_ paranoid?

Hmm, probably a normal and common part of their profession.

The dark haired man did not answer the rhetorical question. There wasn't really anything he could have said, other than 'of course' or something along those lines. Honey colored eyes focused on me and I knew he was about to start an 'interrogation'. ''You don't have to answer, Rei-chan, but it would be helpful. How did you...find yourself in such a situation?''

Deciding that a child my age probably shouldn't understand such a question and realizing the mistake I made earlier by answering all the other inquiries, I shut my mouth before it uttered something suspicious. Yamada took it the right way and rephrased his question in a kiddie friendly way. ''Where are your parents? Your Okaa-san and Otou-san?''

''Lost Okaa-san and Ken.'' That was something my twin would have said, the only difference being his name replacing mine.

''Ken?'' The investigator paused. ''You were separated on the streets?''

I nodded slowly and turned my head to the right. The crowd was slowly dispersing, only a few of them left to stare at the aftermath of the fight and _me._

God, I hated all that staring. Didn't they have anything better to do?

Yamada's gentle voice pulled me out of my musings. ''If you don't mind, I'll go away for a few minutes. I need to make a call and it's too loud here for me to hear anything my boss will say.''

He was asking me for permission? ''You come back?''

A gentle pat on the head. ''Of course, I promise.''

''Pinky promise?'' I held up my pinky finger and his larger digit wrapped itself around my smaller one, sealing the promise. Sometimes I truly enjoyed behaving like a child. People never looked weirdly at me because I did something wrong.

Not that I had much contact with different people to begin with.

Without saying anything else, I watched him distance himself from the crowd and move to what looked like a calmer spot. With his right hand he held a cellphone to his ear and called his boss.

I couldn't hear anything he said. Was that one of the reasons why he left our side? Maybe he did not want a child to hear whatever he had to tell his boss?

Or maybe I was just starting to be paranoid as well.

''Taichi!'' Startled, my eyes fell on Sakiko. She was standing on her toes and looking at the other paramedic. ''Could you get some water for Rei-chan? We don't know how long it was since she last drunk something.''

The man, whom I now knew to be Taichi, waved his hand in a gesture of understanding. ''I have an unopened water bottle in my bag. It's at the front.''

The bag's exact location was the left front seat of the ambulance. Taichi took the small water bottle and unscrewed it for me. Going to the bag and coming to me took him less than two minutes. The guy was a fast one.

''Can you drink directly from the bottle or do you need a cup?'' Holding the bottle slightly above my hands, the man obviously expected me to answer.

I hated such situations. Things I formerly managed to do without any problems now needed to be done by others for me. Mother had to feed me, bath me, change me—Be it clothes or diapers.—and take care of many other things.

Being a toddler sucked.

Jutting my lip out in a way only cute little children could, I held my hands out. ''The bottle.''

As expected the water tasted like nothing. A cool liquid that soothed my aching throat. Until now I hadn't even noticed that my throat was hurting from all the screaming.

Considering what happened, I could be high on adrenaline. It would certainly explain why I currently felt no pain. Normally, the band aids on my knees should have irritated my abrasions and made the whole experience a whole lot of more uncomfortable.

Screaming for help had been the only thing I had been able to do while facing the ghoul, so I screamed _a lot._

Either I was high on adrenalin or experiencing some kind of shock because I certainly shouldn't have been so calm about this whole 'I was almost eaten by a ghoul' thing. Doubtlessly, the dams to my ultimate panic would break soon and the flood of suddenly unrestrained emotions would hit me like the wave that caused my first death.

I could only hope to be home at that time. Being hysterical in front of a bunch of strangers and probably some idiot with a camera wouldn't be something enjoyable. Our little apartment sounded like the perfect place for an emotional breakdown.

After taking a last sip of water, I gave the plastic bottle back to Taichi. He accepted it gracefully and even thanked me.

What for, I did not know.

''You want some chocolate?'' The paramedics must have exchanged their tasks; Taichi was now keeping an eye on me, while Sakiko observed the small crowd and searched for any injured people. A chocolate bar was held in front of my face and I felt nauseous just by looking at it.

I didn't think I could stomach anything so soon after seeing the wounds inflicted to the ghoul by the elder investigator. Some of his guts had been almost spilled out of his body.

Chocolate did not sound good at the moment.

Leisurely, my head shook, hair flying in all directions and gently brushing against paper white cheeks. ''No.''

''No?'' An incredulous look was send my way. ''Don't you like chocolate? What child doesn't like chocolate?''

Raising my eyebrows, I cooked my head to the side. ''Okaa-san tells me not take things from str...strangers.''

He laughed heartily, obviously finding something funny in my statement. Such a heartily laughter made him seem younger and more boyish. Twenty-two, I doubted Taichi was older than that. ''Well, yo...Hey! What do you think you're doing?!''

Suddenly, he was standing up and going in his partners direction. Eyes narrowed at the person who had run his friend over and continued on its way despite harming a fellow human.

You know those moments when you feel as if a giant burden had been lifted off your shoulders? When relief floods your body and your tense muscles finally relax?

That was how I felt when I heard Mother call out my name, loud and clear, catching my attention immediately. ''Rei!''

I didn't think I had ever seen Akemi moving so fast. Her hair fluttered in all directions and glasses threatened to fall off her face. Red cheeks and a puffy breath indicated that she must have run quite a lot.

Ken was held tightly in her arms, squealing with joy. I guessed he either enjoyed the run or was happy to see me after our short time of separation.

Before I could even think about doing anything, Akemi slammed into me. Her left arm wrapped itself around me and pushed half of my body into her chest and the other half into Ken. Her grip was hard and unyielding, yet gentle and loving.

''Rei, oh Rei. My sweet, sweet daughter.'' Mother was crying, her arms if possible tightening their grip around Ken and me. ''I thought I would never see you again.''

Instead of trying to loosen her suffocating hold on me, I raised my tiny arms and attached them to mother and Ken.

Fortunately, my twin seemed to understand that something important was happening and decided to stay unusually silent. His hand found mine and our fingers became tangled.

''You must be Rei-chan's mother.'' Yamada's shadow loomed over our small group, startling the three of us out of our private moment. ''Kaneki-san, I presume.''

Mother froze for a second and then her arms tightened around us even more. Steadily, she turned around while still holding the two of us up in her arms. Yamada became the object of her inspection and received a pair of narrowed eyes at the sight of his silver suitcase. ''Yes, my name is Kaneki Akemi, though I have no idea who you are.''

The investigator raised both of his hands in placating manner. Almost sheepishly he scratched the back of his neck. I did not blame him for it, Mother almost sounded as if she was accusing him of being the one who took me from her. ''I'm Yamada Sai, Rank Two Junior Investigator. It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am.''

Brown eyebrows furrowed in confusion. ''The pleasure is all mine, Yamada-san. Where you the one who found my daughter?''

''I don't think the situation can be explained with the simple word 'found'. Perhaps you should sit down, Kaneki-san.'' A command rather than a question. Choosing to listen, Akemi settled down inside the ambulance with Ken and me on her lap. Yamada cleared his throat. ''Your daughter has been involved in an unfortunate incident. She was attacked by a ghoul with the code name _Zō_.''

Trembling hands gripped the front of my shirt tightly. A faint whisper was the only thing mother was able to produce. ''Attacked?''

The investigator nodded his head. ''Yes, attacked. We arrived just in time to intervene before anything bad could happen. She has attained a few abrasions, but is otherwise physically completely healthy.''

Physically healthy? Did he just imply I might be crazy now and should probably visit a shrink?

''There are things we still need to know about this incident and I hope you will be able to visit our headquarters in the following week.'' Once again his statement left mother no choice. He might as well have said that if she did not come, an investigator would drag her there kicking and screaming. Possibly worse.

''Of course.'' Mother smiled overly sweetly. '' _I_ will come to talk with you when my daughter feels better. There is also the matter of me finding a babysitter. My husband might not have any free time that day.''

''You could just bring them with you. Rei-chan here is a witness after all.'' Did he really just say the CCG would like to interrogate me. God, I was just a toddler. What did he hope to get from me?

Mother's smile turned sharper. ''I don't think that will be necessary. If my husband doesn't have time, then my sister will. Besides, I doubt it would be good for Rei to relive such a traumatic experience because of your misguided hope of getting useful information from a not even two years old.''

I had never heard mother talking to anyone in such a way. Atta girl!

Sighting loudly, Yamada must have come to the conclusion that it was not worth fighting over this with my mother. Our small group was garnering enough attention as it was, a loud argument would do him no good. Especially because it would look like a CCG investigator was harassing a young mother whose daughter had been almost killed.

People had different opinions about the CCG. Not because they cared about ghouls, but because they weren't sure about what to think of their training regime and all the power the small organization seemed to have in our society. An investigator harassing a young woman and her children in public would not be good for the CCG's image.

''I apologize, ma'am. I did not think about the repercussions such a conversation could have on your daughter.'' He bowed his head slightly. ''Your testimony will be sufficient.''

Balancing the both of us in her arms, Mother stood up from her sitting position. ''It's fine, Yamada-san. I might have overreacted a little.'' She bowed as far as she could with both of her arms occupied. ''I apologize as well and thank you for saving my daughter. I don't know what I would have done if something had happened to her.''

''There's nothing to thank me for, Kaneki-san.'' He paused. ''Do you need a drive home?''

Mother shook her head, short bangs flying in all directions. ''No, no. We do not live far from here. Moreover, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you in such a way.''

''If you're sure.'' The young man reached inside his pocket and took out a small card. ''My phone number is on it. If you should need help, just call.''

Somehow mother managed to take it from him and tuck it inside her bag. ''Thank you again. I don't want to seem rude, but I think it's time for us to go home. So...''

Yamada nodded his head. ''Yes, I should probably get going as well. My partner might need some help with the case.''

''Well, then I wish you good luck, Yamada-san.'' Her smile was more sincere this time around. ''I hope we won't have to see each other under such circumstances _ever again_.''

Was it just me or did she put an extra emphasis on the 'ever again' part?

''A hope I share.'' Wind blew a few strands of hair away from his face. ''I wish you a nice evening, Kaneki-san.''

With a final wave he disappeared among the crowd.

A small weight seemed to be lifted off my shoulders. Mother's muscles visibly relaxed as well.

Right then and there, enclosed in my mother's arms, I fainted.

* * *

Mother had lied when she said our home wasn't far away. I wasn't conscious for the whole time, but I guessed that it took us about forty minutes to reach our apartment.

Not once did Akemi dare to put one of us down. The fear of losing one of us was still too strong.

My skin did not gain any color during our journey, neither did the trembling truly stop. There was only so much Mother's presence could do.

We arrived at home before the sun set behind the horizon. Only then did Mother finally set us down upon the ground. A trembling hand reached inside her bag and took out a bunch of keys. They fell out of her hands before she even managed to insert the right one into the key hole.

She did not have to start a second attempt that would have no doubt failed once again because Father ripped the door open for her. The action managed to startled us.

His eyes were wide and worried, skin pale and some sweat gathered on his forehead. In the background I could hear the TV recounting some breaking news.

 _They were talking about a toddler that was almost killed by a ghoul. They were talking about me._

Father took a step back and showed us to come inside with his hand. Worried gray eyes never left my face, our hallway's lightning made them seem darker than usual.

One after another we entered the room. Ken at the front, mother at the rear.

I could hear the door closing behind us and then we were enveloped by the dim light of our apartment. Silence reigned around us.

Delicately, Father's arms enveloped Ken and me into a hug. They crushed us in a gentle way to his chest and suddenly I was surrounded only by his smell.

Eyes closed, I breathed in the scent of his cologne and something sweet I could not identify.

And for the first time that day I was finally allowed to let go. Surrounded only by my small family I was allowed to show the weakness I couldn't have in public. My tiny body shook from the heavy sobs and thick tears streamed down my cheeks.

Ken, sweet Ken, gently patted the top of my head. The action only made me cry harder.

 _I had almost died again._

Snot fell from my nose and I shamelessly wiped it into my father's shirt. The green material was already dirty from my many tears.

Another hand touched my back. Mother was kneeling behind me and humming the soft tune she normally used to make us fall asleep.

 _I did not want to live in a world where monsters walked among humans and did not care about anything but themselves. Where being a child did not matter and anyone could become prey._

How would I ever manage to protect my brother if I couldn't even protect myself?

''It's alright, Rei-chan. You're safe now.'' Father's soothing voice whispered into my ear. ''I'll protect you, my sweet child.''

Protect me? Protect me?! How did he plan to protect me? He had no chance at winning a fight against a ghoul.

I almost laughed hysterically. The only thing that stopped me was my crying and the lack of air in my lungs.

My tiny arms wrapped themselves around my father's neck and I took a calming intake of air. Then another and another.

With a tiny voice and a clear fear I whispered into his ear,

 _''He said he would come for me.''_


	4. Do I Wanna Know?

_Edited on the 26th of July 2017.  
_

* * *

 **I have been waiting to write this chapter for some time now. A big surprise is awaiting you here. At least I hope it is a surprise.  
**

 **I tried to hide the truth as much as I could and until now only one of you mentioned this possibility in the reviews.**

 **It's been already three weeks since I last updated anything, so I will stop rambling here and let you enjoy this chapter.**

 **The last thing I have to mention is that I would truly appreciate it if you could leave a review for this chapter. I'm really interested in your opinions about what happens.**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]**

 **Enjoy.  
**

* * *

 _Chapter 4  
_

 _Do I Wanna Know?_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where The Past Fights Back_

* * *

" _History doesn't repeat itself, but it harmonizes, and what it usually makes is the devil's music."  
― Stephen King, 11/22/63_

* * *

Even two weeks after the attack I still did not feel safe. Even at home I constantly waited for the moment when Zō would storm inside my room and devour me. My dreams were plagued by nightmares of him ripping my brother into pieces and then proceeding to slowly consume me.

Once again I could find no peace in this cursed life. Be it reality or my own mind, they haunted me with the possibility of me dying _again_. Having the knowledge of what comes after did not change the fact that there wasn't anything in this world that I feared more than _dying_.

My family tried to support me. Ken did not leave my side for longer than ten minutes. Father never strayed too far away from us. Not even during that one night he normally reserved for his disappearances to only god knew where.

There wasn't much mother could do. Akemi still had to go to work, but she tried her best.

Too afraid to even think about leaving the house, I started a monotonous routine. I slept, woke up, ate and spent some time with my family. Over and over and over again.

Fear became my constant companion and half of the time I wondered when my murderer would finally arrive.

He did not come, but that did not allow my paranoia to subside. It only _increased._

More than once father tried to reassure me and yet there was nothing he could do. If he tried standing between me and the ghoul, he would certainly be killed as well.

I did not want that. I did not want to see my family hurt or to be the reason for their deaths.

However, I was just as helpless as they were. Telling my parents to leave me behind would have been stupid. They would never do something like that.

Besides, I could not survive on my own.

 _I did not want to die again._

Thus I continued existing like a living corpse, too much of a coward to face reality and choose to sacrifice myself for my family. I did not doubt that Zō would come for me. The only questions were when he would arrive and whom he would kill.

The self-loathing I felt grew with each day. Still, I failed trying to conquer it.

''Rei-chan? What are you doing?'' Mother's voice managed to convey all of her worry and frustration. ''Where is Ken?''

Slowly, my gaze moved to her face and I smiled as convincingly as I could. There was no need for her to worry about me. _I did not deserve her worry_. ''I watching an anime, Kaa-san. Ken's in room.''

Apparently, of all the things they could have copied from my old universe, it was the anime Inuyasha that seemed to be the most important. It started airing last week and I almost cried when I saw it.

An anime ended up being the first truly familiar thing I encountered in this new world.

Mother moved towards me and proceeded to gently pet my head. ''What is he doing in your room?''

''Getting Koko-chan.'' The smile I gave her was a rare genuine one. Nowadays, my brother seemed to be the only one who could make me truly smile. His attics were just too cute.

Among all the things I ever imagined the _Kaneki Ken_ liking there had never been a plushy monkey. And he even named it Koko-chan after one of his favorite cartoon characters.

''Koko-chan, huh?'' She laughed lightly. ''He does seem to like her more than your other toy...uhm friends.''

Father once called our toys, well, 'toys' and Ken threw a tantrum. Then he loudly claimed that Koko-chan wasn't a 'toy' but ' _our_ friend'. It was clear to me that his behavior amused our parents.

Hell, it amused _me_. Especially because he claimed that Koko-chan was our mutual best friend.

''Are you hungry, Rei-chan?'' A fluffy blanket was put over my shoulders. ''Thirsty?''

I shook my head. ''No, but Ken's belly growled earlier.''

She stood up and did not say anything until she reached the room's entrance. ''I will prepare some dinner. You will eat it as well. Afterwards I might even let you two watch your favorite movie.''

I still had a weakness for good animated movies. Here, they had their own version of Studio Ghibli that produced just as good movies as the real one. Studio Akio, that was their name, I think.

Despite her kindness Mother knew what she had to do to manipulate her children into doing what she wanted.

Even though I knew exactly what she was doing, I still could not resist.

Pathetic, I know.

Just a minute after Mother left the room Ken appeared at its threshold. In the most cliche of ways he was holding his toy at its paw and dragging the monkey behind himself.

I might have been biased, but in my opinion Ken was the cutest child ever. Particularly, dressed in those adorable gray and white onesies that even had a hood with a pair of fluffy ears. ''Yasha started already.''

His nose scrunched up and he slowly walked towards me. We were still too small to just be able to plop down on the couch, thus he had to climb on it. ''Kaa-san making dinner?''

I nodded my head. ''Yes.''

He set Koko-chan down on the couch in a way that she was leaning against a bunch of pillows. Afterwards he inched towards me until our sides were touching. Short strands of hair tickled my face when he put his head on my shoulder, his small hand reaching for mine and linking our fingers.

I thought that the anime was a little ahead in comparison to my old world. They were already by the part with Mt. Hakurei.

Ken's hand suddenly tighten around mine. ''Rei? Yasha will win?''

''Of course. Yasha always wins.'' I patted our linked hands with my left one. ''You d...''

Unexpectedly, the door to our apartment slammed open. I jumped up in fright and turned to look at the hallway with wide and terrified eyes.

What was going on?

Loud footsteps echoed through our small home and stopped at the kitchen. Mother did not scream and there were no sounds of fighting, so I guessed it was our father.

My heart-rate immediately started to calm down.

Ken's attention moved back to the TV, however, I wasn't as easily convinced that everything was alright.

Why was Father home so early? He had left not even an hour ago.

I was not given more time to wonder as Father suddenly stormed inside the living room and his eyes instantly zeroed on me. He grabbed me with frantic hands, whispering gently into my ear, ''We have to go, Rei-chan. Everything is going to be alright.''

What the hell? Why did he sound so frantic? More importantly, what was going on?

''Otou-san?'' Fearing to fall down, my hands gripped the front of his jacket tightly. ''What's going on?''

His arms adjusted their grip on me and he continued to speed-walk towards the door. Mother was there, silently waiting for our arrival.

Father did not stop moving, not even to say goodbye.

It was at that moment that one tiny thought danced across my mind.

 _We're going outside. Oh god, why are we going outside?_

Faster than I ever saw him moving, Father raced down the stairs of our apartment block. He did not even take one step at a time. We arrived downstairs in record time and immediately left the building.

Crisp air caressed my slightly pudgy cheeks and the sounds of the outside world assaulted my senses. Most people did not manage to get out of our way when father ran pass them. Some were just pushed aside, while others fell down on their bosoms.

There was a lot of cursing left in our wake.

 _Why are we outside? What if_ he _finds us?_

Father continued running, completely ignoring the other people on the streets. The wind blew at us from behind and send my short bangs in my face. A few times Father turned his head to look behind us and I feared we would fall and hurt ourselves. You did not just run at such speeds without paying any attention to the road before you.

The crowd around us was thinning and soon there were almost no people on the walkway. Ryota turned left into a side street and slowed down his pace.

Left, right, left, left, right. This place was like a maze, the streets resembling narrow alleyways more than anything else and perfect for hiding a corpse without having to worry that it would ever be found.

Wherever we were, it certainly wasn't one of the nice parts of the city anymore.

To my horror we seemed to have reached Father's destination. An actual alley with only one escape.

 _What are we doing here? Was my father mad?_

A crazed _cackle_ stopped me from asking what was on my mind. A cackle that had haunted me for the last two weeks.

 _Zō_

The breath was caught in my throat and I could hear my heart pumping loudly in my head. Alabaster hands tightened their grip around Father's clothes and a loud sob escaped my lips.

 _Oh god._

''Ku, ku, ku. Look at this beautiful picture.'' Mad laughter echoed through the tight space surrounding us. ''An appetizer and the main course.''

For a second a shadow appeared above us, only to disappear once again. _He was toying with us._

''Your fear, it smells _so so good,_ my sweet little girl.'' He sounded delighted. ''But your Tou-chan on the other hand does not smell like fear. Hahaha, that's no fun at all.''

The monster still hid in the dark, waiting for the right moment to attack.

Father, whom I now suspected to be suicidal, did not move an inch. He just stood there casually and observed the shadows. There was no doubt about him being mad. After all, the man had walked us to our own execution.

Should I have been thankful for him not abandoning me and choosing to face death together?

At least Ken and Mother were safe now.

 _Did Mother know that the two of us would die today?_

I hoped not. Even the thought felt unbearable, let alone it being an actual truth.

''Ooh, I'm going to enjoy ripping you into small pieces.'' Why did he have to cackle so much? ''I just wonder, oh higher power, oh higher power, whom shall I first devour?''

What was it with him and rhymes?

 _More laughter._

A figure appeared at the top of a bin a few meters in front of us. Its knees bent as it shot in our direction like a bullet. This was it, this was how I would die for a second time.

Unfortunately, the ghoul did not even manage to land a scratch on us and thus I was forced to face an unbelievable reality.

You know, I once read a book written by Stephen King. It was about a man who traveled into the past to stop the assassination of JFK. He thought that the future would end up being a better place if that one person survived. The history of America and the whole world would have been changed irrevocably.

Long story short, _the man failed._

This failure didn't stem from his laziness or any fault of his own and at the end he actually did manage to stop the assassination. The problem was that the past did not want to be changed. It fought against him and in the process of 'saving' the world he lost a good friend and the love of his life.

But what were two lives in comparison to the whole future?

With his accomplished mission he saved thousands. He became a hero.

And by saving the past he destroyed the future as well. A dystopian world awaited him back home. Nothing had changed for the better.

The thousands he had saved in the past died in the future. America as he had known it did not exist anymore.

 _The past did not want do be changed. It fought back and always managed to win._

He went back once again and made sure to change nothing. The man did not even seek out the love of his life.

I myself thought that I could change my twin's future easily. After all, how hard could it be to keep him away from the small cafe Anteiku? How hard could it be to stop him from ever meeting Rize?

Someone else could take his place in this tragedy. My brother did not have to be this story's main protagonist.

 _How could I have been so naive?_

 _The past did not want to be changed. Kaneki Ken was meant to be a ghoul. There was nothing I could do against it._

Especially now that I saw my father for whom, no, _what_ he truly was.

Bright red irises glowed in the alley's dim lightning. They were set in a sea of blackness and looking at the ghoul before us with a burning hatred.

For a millisecond I did not recognize my own father.

Four long tentacles grew out of his lower back and ripped his dark green shirt apart. They were mostly red, yet seemed to shimmer black in a certain light. 'Beautiful' and 'otherworldly' were the perfect words to describe them. Hundreds of small scales run up the appendages and had I not been in such a proximity to them I would have most likely not noticed them at all.

 _Rinkaku Kagune._ With all the movement, the extra organ almost seemed to have a will of its own.

I felt tempted to touch them. Would they be rough or smooth? Cold or hot? Would they hurt me?

A strangled sound escaped my lips.

Setting me down upon the hard ground, Ryota gave me a reassuring smile. ''There is nothing to worry about, Rei-chan. I already promised to protect you.''

He stepped in front of me, shielding me from the feral ghoul.

 _Did I mean_ _Zō or my own father?_

Because there was no denying it. No matter how much I tried, I just could not deny the truth with all the evidence needed standing proudly before me.

 _Kaneki Ryota was a ghoul._

Both men moved at speeds I could never hope to achieve. Their figures blurred before my eyes and the only thing I could follow was the sound of battle. Dozens of sharp Kagune shards found their way into the ground. The two buildings surrounding us sustained heavy damage.

I could smell their blood. Their sweet, sweet blood.

My legs gave away under me and I landed on my knees. One tear after another streamed down my cheeks and I could not help but wonder when this nightmare would finally end.

There was a sound I could now associate with flesh ripping and a hand appeared in my vision. Almost innocently it laid a few centimeters away from me. A severed hand.

 _I screamed in absolute horror._

A part of me realized it was not Father's hand and felt actually glad. Ryota was alright, or so I hoped.

At the end I could not bring myself to watch the fight till the end. Eyelids covered my eyes, trying to shield me from the outside world. I only knew the fight had ended because a tall figure cast a large shadow over me.

To my twisted relief, it was my father.

One of his ears was literarily missing and there were a few bloody wounds on his body. Considering the situation he had just been in, his shape wasn't all that bad.

The appendages had vanished into his body once again and he was gazing down at me with his red and black eyes.

Not far away from us was a small puddle of blood.

Almost unconsciously, I picked myself up from the ground and walked towards it. The red substance called out to the primal part of me I never knew existed. Two hands reached up to cover my face.

My right eye _pulsed._

A trembling hand uncovered my left eye. I looked at the puddle. Like a mirror it reflected my small face. The eye was gray, the gray I inherited from my paternal grandmother.

Lips pressed into a thin line. The right hand fell down.

A closed eye opened.

 _Black and red._

I remembered the food Mother had given me this morning, the food I had believed to be some kind of chicken broth.

But it hadn't been chicken, my own mother had fed with me _human flesh_. Oh god, I had eaten another human. Each time Mother had given me that sweet red juice I had actually been drinking human blood. All those light broths had been pureed human flesh.

How had I not noticed this? How could I have not noticed that I wasn't a _human_ anymore?

Bile rose into my mouth and I threw up my last meal all over the ground. For a second I thought I could see a finger in the vomit puddle.

What have I ever done to deserve this? Nothing, I did nothing. Was this the universe's demented idea of a joke?

Or maybe it was meant to be some kind of lesson. A lesson on humanity, perhaps.

Laughter bubbled out of my mouth. There was nothing human about me anymore. Besides whatever had filled my now empty stomach, of course.

 _I am a ghoul._


	5. Lost It All

_Edited on the 26th of July 2017.  
_

* * *

 **To answer one of the questions asked in the reviews, yes, this is an AU story. I should have probably mentioned it in the first chapter, shouldn't I? Yeah.**

 **Anyway, there are other questions you have asked me, however, I have decided not to answer them in this review. I actually hope I'll be able to answer them in the story and that you will be patient enough to wait and read.**

 **Please leave a review.**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-**

 **Have fun.**

* * *

 _Chapter 5  
_

 _Lost It All_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where She Had To Face An Unwanted Truth_

* * *

 _"We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind."_  
 _― Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence_

 _"Living is too hard right now. Dying is easy. Let me die."_  
 _― Kristin Cashore, Fire_

* * *

 _I am a ghoul._

 _Oh._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _OH._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _No, no, no, no. This can't be happening._

 _._

 _This has to be a lie._

 _._

 _._

 _How could this happen?!_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Please, whoever send me here, save me! I can't...I don't_

 _._

 _._

 _Oh, god. No!_

 _._

 _._

 _FuckfuckfuckFuCKF **UcK**_

 _It's a lie. It's all a lie.  
_

 _.._

 _But it isn't._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _ **I'm not human anymore.**_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Who am I?  
_

 _._

 _Rei?_

 _._

 _._

 _Or..._

 _._

 ** _Hisako?_**

 _._

 _._

 _I'm tired. I'm so tired. I just don't want to do this anymore._

 _._

 _WHAT AM I?!_

 _._

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _human?_

 _..no_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **I** Am  a_ **GH o**u _l_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Why didn't you just let me die?!_

* * *

There had been many instances in my life during which I thought that my situation just could not get any worse.

Facing a tsunami.

Finding out that I had died and been reborn.

Realizing that I was in the Tokyo Ghoul universe. That Kaneki Ken was my twin brother.

But now it _truly_ could not get any worse. How I had not noticed that I wasn't human anymore was beyond me.

Actually, maybe I did notice or at least had some suspicions.

I might have been ignorant, but I had never been stupid, thus I did realize how odd the whole situation was. I noticed how mother would always give us only water or some red substance to drink. How we never ate anything but meat. How we never had any family dinners and how rarely Father actually ate anything.

And yet I choose to ignore it all for as long as I could. Denial could be such a wonderful thing. It allowed me to live in my perfect little world, completely ignorant to the fact that something was... _wrong._

Unfortunately, there were only so many lies I could tell myself before the truth finally caught up to me.

And catch up with me it did the moment I looked into a bloody puddle and saw a vermilion eye staring back at me. The sclera black as the darkest night with deep red rivers flowing through it and across the skin under my eye.

It wasn't hard to tell myself that the red liquid mother had given me was some fruit juice. The taste was similar enough. Sweet with a tinge of sourness.

I could easily ignore the weird behavior of my parents and how my father seemed to be _different._ He disappeared at times for hours, only to come back with suspicious stacks of money. I never actually saw him eat anything and the only beverage he drunk seemed to be _coffee._

But there was no running away for me now. How could I deny something that was literally staring at me?

 _A kakugan. A ghoul's eye._

I was the product of a human and a ghoul. A hybrid. A legend.

 _A One-eyed ghoul._

Without really knowing it I had been eating other humans for almost two years now. The word 'other' probably did not fit in that sentence because I wasn't human anymore.

I may have inherited half of my mother's genetics, but that did not change that my ghoul side would always be the more powerful one. If it hadn't, then I would not have had to survive on human meat.

Besides, I doubted any sane human would dub me as anything else but an abomination.

The sound of a backpack being opened drew my attention towards Father. He had reached out with one of his hands behind a trash bin and proceeded to take out a fairly large backpack. It had a dark navy color and contained spare clothing for the man. There was also a large amount of plastic bags.

And as I watched him slowly move towards Zo and methodically rip his body into small pieces, I realized that _he had planned it all._

For more than two weeks my own father had planned how he would murder this one creature. Thought of a way to lure him out and where he would have the biggest advantage during a fight. He even remembered to take spare clothing for himself, so that he would not have to walk through Tokyo's streets in a blood soaked shirt and trousers.

Father had used me as a _bait._

There was nothing I could do or say. In some ways I understood his actions. _Zō_ was coming after me, Ken and mother did not need to be endangered. Even if Father would have failed in this fight and _Zō_ would have eaten me, Mother and Ken would have been safe.

Still, the thought of him being willing to sacrifice me in such a gruesome way caused a slight ache in my heart. Not for the first time I realized that in this new world I was nothing but a pawn on the chessboard, easily discarded if the situation called for it.

Paralyzed by the muted horror that I felt, I observed my father and saw him for the first time for what he truly was. I never thought him to be perfect, but neither did think he would be capable of ripping one of his own brethren apart and then calmly stuffing his body parts into plastic bags.

However, that was exactly what he did.

And his answer to my completely horrified look was:

 _''We can't afford it to waste food.''_

Petrified, I almost cried because of how much he reminded me of _Zō_. _Food,_ the other ghoul had called me the same thing.

Was this how the world truly worked? Either you were family or you were nothing but food. Did ghouls truly divide society only into those two groups?

All of a sudden I grasped how awful this world truly was. While I could hate the way my father acted, I could not say it was wrong. Because it wasn't. No, no, no, it wasn't. What other choice did he have? In a society where his kind was hunted for merely existing and his family's life was in danger each day, he could not afford to be _nice._

It was survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed.

Father wasn't wrong for behaving the way he did. I wasn't wrong because of all my sentiments.

No, _the world was wrong._

Once again in such a short time thick tears started to stream down my cheeks. Slowly, ever so slowly, I acknowledged the fact that this was not meant to be a _second chance._ It was a punishment for whatever I had done wrong in my previous life.

I had lulled myself into a sense of security and believed that I could change _everything._ But now I knew that was not true. There was nothing that I could do to stop Ken from becoming a ghoul. There was no Rize I could hinder him from meeting.

 _Kaneki Ken was already a One-eyed ghoul._

With that thought came the knowledge that I could not predict the future anymore. One simple difference had changed everything. Even though I had finished reading Tokyo Ghoul and saw how Kaneki died at the end, none of it actually fit in this alternate universe.

What would we do when our mother finally died? Go to our aunt?

I almost laughed at that. What an _amusing_ thought.

 _I would never let that woman near my twin._

A very important question danced across my mind. One I sadly did not know the answer for. It actually reminded me of that one TV show I once watched. It was about a young girl who had killed an even younger boy, and her father who confessed to doing it in her stead. He covered her crime and payed by going to prison for child murder.

 _How far was I willing to go for my twin brother?_

What was I ready to do for him? Lie? Steal? Kill? If it ever came to it, would I let him eat me so that he could survive? Would I be willing to do all that?

I didn't know.

''Rei-chan, we need to go.'' It was Father. He was kneeling before me, the backpack on his shoulders and clean clothes on. His smile belied all he had done just seconds ago. ''I'll better carry you, huh? Your face is a little pale.''

No shit. I probably looked like a corpse.

A strong arm—Stronger than I had ever imagined. An arm that could easily kill me.—was wrapped around my tiny waist.

Shouldn't I have been afraid of him?

 _(Yes, yes, I should have.)_

 _Of course not. Ghoul or not, Kaneki Ryota was my father._

The man started humming a soft tune. It resembled one of my mother's lullaby's. Did he think it would calm me down? It certainly did not work its magic on my terrified mind.

Emotionally exhausted, I fainted in my father's arms. Quite honestly, I did not want to wake up again.

.

 _._

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

We _ate_ _Zō_ for breakfast the next morning, his flesh more disgusting than anything else I had eaten ever before. The ghoul tasted like decayed fish and rotten eggs mixed together with spoiled milk.

The only thing that stopped me from throwing up was my father's comment.

 _''We can't afford it to waste food.''_

* * *

I never asked Mother or Father for food again and ate only what they gave to me. Not even once since _that_ incident were we served ghoul flesh.

It was human, always human.

(A part of me was glad that we would not have to force more of that disgusting flesh down our throats. _Human meat was_ so _much better.)_

Mother could not stand all the blood, that's why father always packaged it separately from the skin and the organs. The blood we were given to drink, while the flesh was served in a way that it did not even mildly resembled anything human.

Mother could not stand the thought of it.

Her _disgust_ made me wonder how we survived nine months in her womb. And then I thought of the sacrifice she had made for us and knew that the young woman had it even worse than I.

I was a half ghoul, thus I had to eat human flesh to survive. She had cannibalized her own kind for the unborn children she never planned to have. Probably never wanted to have.

It made me wonder how much she actually hated and blamed us for her current situation.

Most days I pitied Kaneki Akemi and pondered on why my parents got involved in the first place. But there were also days, bad days, during which I despised her for all the decisions she had made.

Life would have been so much better if she had not chosen to eat another human. She would have been able to lead a normal life and Ken and I would not have had to experience whatever the future held in store for us.

I often came to regret those thoughts. Ken deserved to live, even though he was way too good for this world. My twin deserved the best and Akemi should not have to suffer because of my self-loathing.

What bothered me was that even a year after finding out the truth about my existence those thoughts still hadn't stopped, neither did the disgust and horror I felt for my new diet disappear.

Ken did not mind at all. He was too young to understand the implications of eating human flesh. Secretly, I hoped he would never come to understand them. His life would be easier if he saw humans as nothing more than... _food._

He would not have to feel guilty for every bite he took. He would not have to curse his very existence.

But I did. Each day I hated myself a little more because I knew that not all of my father's victims were deserving. Many were innocent.

 _We couldn't afford to be picky._

That was another thing father once told us. It gave me a glimpse of the ruthless side of him. Kaneki Ryota was a loving father and a caring husband, but he was also a ghoul and I could only guess what he had gone through and done in his short life. There was no family on his side left. Were they all killed by the CCG?

That would certainly explain his hatred for all humans who weren't Mother.

How two so drastically different people could ever get married was beyond me. My parents somehow made it work. Even if both of them were forced to ignore the others faults. It probably wasn't healthy that Akemi preferred to pretend that both her husband and children were human. Neither was it good that Father ignored Mother's hatred for his own kind.

This whole thing was a disaster in the making.

Maybe they only stayed together because of the two of us. I did not want to know the truth.

It hurt too much to think that I had trapped a person like Akemi in this nightmare.

 _Kaneki Akemi was a gentle soul. She did not deserve all that had happened to her._

Slowly, my gaze moved towards a clock that was hanging on the living room's wall. There were four hours left until mother arrived back from her work. Before she did father planned to give us our first lesson on how to be a ghoul.

Apparently, other ghoul parents did it when their children were about two years old, but Mother managed to talk father out of it.

Today we would receive our first lesson on how to be a ghoul.

''I think we should join Otou-san in the kitchen, Ken.'' I had lost my childish lisp a month ago and started to speak in normal sentences. Never too advanced as not to get the wrong attention, but still a little better than my twin. ''He is probably already waiting.''

My twin looked up from whatever TV-show he was watching and smiled at me. He always smiled. ''Uhmm.''

He raised himself from his seated position and waited for me to do the same. After I finished copying his action, the small boy grasped my hand lightly and started to make his way towards the kitchen.

 _I could smell it before I saw it._

Blood and flesh. The smell made my mouth water and nose scrunch up in disgust. When we were younger our parents fed us separately—The reason why I never glimpsed Ken's kakugan.—because it was easier than one of them trying to feed two toddlers at once. But now that we were old enough to be trusted with a fork Ken and I often ate our food together.

It was no surprise for me when I saw his kakugan appear. The eye did not really fit into the innocent face of a child.

Hannibal's kitchen most likely looked like ours when he started to prepare one of his _special_ meals.

There was a plastic tablecloth on the kitchen table and upon it countless of plates with different body parts. Lugs, heart, liver, skin, brain and so much more. All of them on separate plates.

Our kitchen looked like an excerpt of a horror movie.

''Good, you're here. I just finished preparing your lesson.'' Father held a large knife in his hand and looked like a crazed madman who was about to kill us. He even had some blood on his cheek. ''Come, I'll help you get into your chairs.''

We were still too small to reach the table on normal chairs, thus we used those special ones for kids.

Gently, Father sat us down on the chairs and put the knife he had previously left on the table into the sink. ''You're too young to go hunting, so we will talk about the next best thing. Our diet.''

Our diet? What was there to talk about? In my opinion it was quite easy: eat human meat and nothing else. If you have to, ghouls are the next best solution.

Apparently, it wasn't that easy.

''There are a few important factors you will have to consider before choosing your prey. The most important being age and body mass.'' Father paused. ''Older people are often sickly and do not taste as good as young ones. Too much fat isn't healthy for us. Those are the two things you should always pay attention to.''

There was a steaming cup of coffee on the table and he took a sip from it. ''The next categories are a matter of taste. Male or female? Young children, teenagers or adults? They all have different hormone levels and that influences their taste. Earlier I mentioned that you shouldn't eat older people because they're oftentimes sickly, but some actually like the taste such an illness gives people. They search for humans who are suffering from some terminal illness and enjoy eating them the most.''

I certainly wouldn't be doing that. And children were not an option either.

''You could try, but I doubt you'll actually like it. Anyway, let's continue.'' His hand pointed at the plates. ''There are many different parts to a human body. Skin, muscles, organs and so much more. There are some parts that are less edible than others. You should avoid most organs that have something to do with digestion. The stomach, small intestine and colon are not suitable for eating. The chances of encountering human food are just too high with them. The tongue is more often liked than disliked.''

Each organ that was not to be eaten was moved aside. ''Then there are the bones. Ghouls generally don't eat bones. They cause stomach pains and are rather hard to digest in large amounts. However, children often like bone marrow which is why some ghouls have come to the conclusion that it's 'sweet'.''

Ken's hand cautiously reached out to the bone plate. He took a bone fragment from it and licked it with his tongue. ''It tastes like nothing. See, Rei.''

And quite literally he pushed the bone in my hand and demanded for me to try. Father observed us with clear amusement in his eyes. He knew there were not many things I could deny Ken.

So I did as he asked, the difference being that I did not try tasting the outside but what was on the inside. Imagine my surprise when I realized that what Father said was actually true. The bone marrow was truly sweet. It reminded me of toffee.

Immediately, a disgusted grimace appeared on my face. The fact that I actually liked it only heightened my revulsion.

''Your sister did it the right way.'' Father picked up another bone fragment from the plate and gave it to Ken. ''You have to try the inside, not the outside.''

Ken grinned widely when he tasted the sweetness. Note to myself: Ken likes sweet things.

''The next are the edible organs. Lungs and hearts are usually the tastiest among them. They have a nice texture and taste. After them comes the brain. The kidneys are also quite nice. Many also like the uterus and ovaries of women. But you should never try eating the bladder, it tastes horrible. Because of its function the liver has often a peculiar taste. I personally like it.''

Unlike the lectures my teachers had given me this one was at least interesting. It was also very morbid, but I chose to ignore that part.

''Another important thing is the blood. Skin and muscles as well. Blood is often given to children. Skin and muscles are good at filling the stomach.'' Languidly, Father scratched his chin. ''I haven't mentioned some of the smaller parts. They are mostly insignificant. Both in taste and digestion. But there is one thing I myself think of as a delicacy: the eyes. They are small and each human has only two of them, but their taste is exquisite.''

Eww, the eyes? Really? I preferred the parts that looked like pork and which made it possible for me to pretend that I was not eating anot... _a human_ a. The lecture might have been interesting in a morbid way, but it also made me immensely uncomfortable. Better end it before I threw up. ''Uhm...Was that all, Otou-san? Okaa-san will be back soon.''

Father's gaze turned towards his wrist watch. ''Ah, yes. We better clean up before your Okaa-san arrives. Why don't you take whatever you like best and eat it in the living room. I will make sure your mother doesn't have to see any of this.''

''Yes!'' Ken grinned brightly and immediately snatched two plates. He seemed to change his mind all of a sudden and proceeded to put both of them back on the table.

Both eyes were transferred on one of the plates. The one with the heart to be exact. His second choice was the bones. A sweet tooth indeed.

For a moment I wondered how much he understood from the whole lecture. I doubted it was all that much. ''I'll take some of the...uhm...lung.''

A shudder traveled down my spine and for a moment I regretted my choice. It almost sounded as if I were ordering something at the restaurant.

At the end my choice did not really matter. Each way I was about to eat a human.

I wondered who this pile of flesh had once been, but knew better than to form a conclusion. Seeing my... _food_ as a living and breathing human with a family and friends made the whole thing only harder.

With the sharp knife he had used earlier Father cut some of the lung and heart into smaller pieces and gave it to us. ''I know that there are many things you most likely did not understand, so I wrote everything down in a notebook and hid it among my books. Your mother knows where it is. You'll have to use it when I...''

His eyes narrowed and he dismissed us with a wave of his hand.

The sentence was not finished, but it did not need to be. I knew exactly what he had meant to say.

 _''When I'm finally gone. When the CCG or another ghoul manage to kill me.''_

We both knew that it was not a question of 'if' but of 'when'. Ghouls generally did not have long lives. Hunted by humans and their own kind, most died before they managed to reach their forties. Rarely did they get to be as old as Yoshimura from the manga.

And no matter how much I wished to deny it, I knew Father would leave us sooner rather than later.

 _To die young_ , that was the fate of a ghoul.


	6. Glassy Sky

_Edited on the 8th of August 2017._

* * *

 **Sorry for the long wait and the shortness of this chapter. I just really thought that the time has come when I need to update.**

 **I have published a new TVD Self-Insert story. Try it out, if you are interested.**

 **Summary: About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

 _Chapter 6  
_

 _Glassy Sky_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where Living Becomes Easier_

* * *

 _"I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard."_

 _― Gayle Forman, If I Stay_

" _Remember us...Remember...That we lived._ "

 _―Zankyou no Terror  
_

* * *

Kindergarten was not an option for us and neither would be school or college in the future. Not by legal means at least. We would have to forge documents and certificates to be accepted into a university. The same applied for middle and high school. Trying to attend anything else would be too risky with our lacking self-control.

Our kagugan appeared almost each time we smelled human blood and threatened to expose us to anyone in our vicinity. It was a wonder that no one had noticed our half-blood status until now, especially after what had happened with _Zō_.

Less than three weeks ago mother had cut her finger while preparing her own dinner. I was ashamed to admit that our eyes had colored in hunger. The sight of her blood had made me _salivate._

Mother had ignored us expertly, putting her bloody digit under the cold sink water and wrapping it in a small paper towel afterwards.

It was hard to not feel disgusted with myself, yet at the same time it got easier during some instances. Ignoring the origin of my dinner wasn't an art I perfected in the last year, but I certainly learned to deal with it more expertly.

I stopped constantly asking myself who the person I ate was. Sometimes I even managed to see them as just _food._

(Only to feel guilty about the whole thing not even an hour later. But who cares?)

My life wasn't perfect and it would never be, however, it was the best I would get. A life full of death and lies that led to a peaceful and ignorant existence.

I didn't know if I was truly living, but I was certainly surviving. That was a good beginning, wasn't it?

The belief that this world wouldn't change me into a darker version of myself was as beautiful as it was naive and unattainable. I was already more tainted than _Hisako_ had ever been and I knew that at the end of this journey I would end up losing myself. There was no stopping that.

A truth I could find no escape from.

''Are you still listening, Rei-chan?'' Mother poked my temple none too gently while her eyebrows furrowed slightly. She sounded amused and irritated at my inattention.

Knowing better than to ignore her, my gaze moved immediately towards her face and I nodded vigorously. ''Of course, Okaa-san. I always listen to you.''

Laughter bubbled out of her lips and I saw a single tear gathering at the corner of her left eye. I wasn't that bad, was I? I might have tended to space out from time to time, but it didn't happen _that_ often, I promised.

After my young mother calmed down and managed to finally catch her breath, a small frown appeared on her forehead. Her right hand reached out and patted my head as some disappointment appeared in her eyes. ''You know how much I hate lying. What you said wasn't bad and didn't harm anyone, but it was a lie nonetheless. While there might be moments in your life when you have to lie, you shouldn't do so to me, alright?''

I disliked disappointing Akemi or doing anything that might cause her any harm, yet I could not truly promise her something like that. I came to this world as a liar and I would leave it as one as well. The smile I allowed to grace my lips was as perfect as it was fake. Not even mother would notice the lie hidden behind my bright grin and childish lisp. ''Promise!''

''Good, good.'' Mother smiled and pointed at one kanji in the children's book she had been reading to us. It looked like a square. ''Do you remember what this one meant?''

Our parents had started teaching us some kanji about three weeks after our fourth birthday. Not many, mind you. I didn't think there were more than twenty. A few numbers and some common words. ''It means, hmm, mouth?''

I was glad for having already learned most of it once before. The kanji my parents started to teach us were easy and well known by me. That was one of the reasons for why I did not listen to what mother was saying.

The whole 'lesson' was just so _boring._ Being a child again was _boring._

God, why did I have to be reborn as a child? Couldn't I have woken up in an adult's body? I had read a few fan fictions with such a plot. If being a self-insert was possible, something like that should have been too.

Smiling brightly, Mother let the book fall on her knees. ''That's right. I did not think you would remember this one.''

Shouldn't I have? Was it a word she had mentioned only once and now my behavior seemed weird?

Paranoia could be such a stupid and stressful thing.

''And what about this one, Ken?'' Mother pointed at a kanji that looked a little like a cross. A number. ''Do you remember this one?''

My twin clapped his hands excitedly and his eyes shone with a childish joy that was rarely reflected in my own gray orbs. ''Yes, yes, I know! That's ten.''

Gently, mother wrapped her arms around the both us and pulled our bodies into her chest. ''Look at how smart my two little sunshines are. You make me so proud, my sweetlings.''

As expected, I shrieked like a little girl and then joined my brother's giggling. I did not even have to fake my joy, the fingers tickling my side made sure of that.

''Stop Okaa-san, stop!'' Our childish shrieks mingled together. Mother's content smile made it seem as if those shrieks were the purest symphony.

The flashlight of a camera tore my gaze towards the doorway. Father was standing there with our somewhat old looking camera, smiling at the sight in front of him.

I never knew that the picture he took that day would be one of the only happy and peaceful mementos I would have of my mother.

* * *

We were four years old when I heard that cursed sentence for the first time.

In the anime and manga the human Kaneki Ken had been portrayed as an innocent young man who could not even hurt a fly. He had been almost saintlike.

What a joke.

Ken a was a good child, but that did not change the fact that he was indeed a _child._

While docile and _good,_ my twin still had those moments when acted like a complete brat. When he let his selfishness overwhelm him or some childish wants led to a loud and nerveracking temper tantrum.

 _That day_ he pushed me for taking one of his favorite toys.

It wasn't really as if I _stole_ the plastic elephant. Toys did not interest me even the slightest bit.

The problem was that he had left the toy on my favorite spot on the couch, so I moved it somewhere else which allowed me to settle down comfortably without feeling the elephant's feet digging into my back.

Ken did not take it well and when he saw that I had not only taken his current 'favorites' place, but also thrown the stupid elephant on the floor, something inside of him snapped.

One thing led to another and suddenly we were standing opposite each other, me trying to calm him down and him pushing me backwards in his anger.

I landed on the floor and twisted me left ankle painfully. A cry of pain left my mouth.

 _Mother saw it all._

Her eyes darkened in a way I had never seen before as she slowly walked towards us, gaze firmly set on my twin brother.

I felt like hiding and yet at the same time I somehow knew that I had to get Ken away from her. I just knew that something _bad_ was about to happen.

 _That was only the beginning._

''That wasn't nice, Ken.'' Eyes narrowed, she knelled in front of us. ''You've hurt your sister.''

With wide stubborn eyes and a pout on his pinkish lips, Ken decided to explain himself. ''Rei hurt Ichigi. That wasn't nice.''

Mother's anger and disappointment only rose. _One of her hands twitched._ ''Ichigi is just a _toy,_ Ken.'' Akemi licked her lower lip. ''He doesn't matter. He doesn't hurt. Your sister, on the other hand, should mean everything to you. But it seems like that's not the case.''

 _Harsh._ I could not fathom how my normally so gentle mother could treat Ken so harshly.

''But...but she does. I _promise_.'' He had tears in his eyes and a part of me hated Mother for them. My twin did not deserve this. Children acted like that all the time. A four years old didn't have to perfectly understand the rules of the universe and to constantly act morally right.

He was only four years old, for Christ's sake.

''It doesn't seem like that. Besides, how would you have liked it, if Rei had pushed you like this?'' The volume of her voice was rising, getting louder with each word spoken. ''This isn't what I taught you, my son. To hurt others, that's repugnant.''

Did she expect him to understand what 'repugnant' meant?

Shaking his head, a few tears ran down my brother's cheek. Softly, I touched his hand with my own, not missing the way his fingers tightened around mine. ''It's fine, Okaa-san, I'm not hurt.''

My throbbing ankle betrayed that lie.

For the first time since she entered the room Akemi's eyes focused on me. They held something dark and unwelcome in them. ''This time you might not be hurt. But what about the next time?'' Her gaze wandered back to my brother. ''I need you both to understand something. In this cruel world there are many people who will hurt you, but that doesn't mean that you have to hurt them all back. Such thinking and actions are what led to our society. From pain comes hatred and from hatred comes loss. I have taught you better. Do not be a part of this endless cycle.''

A part of me knew what was coming next. Dread filled my whole body and years later I would come to curse the part of my brain that made me freeze in place.

I should have stopped Ken from ever hearing what she said next.

 _"It's better to be hurt than to hurt others. Nice people can be happy with just that."_


	7. For We Once So Loved The World

_Edited on the 9th of August 2017._

* * *

 **This is probably one of the longest chapters I have written for this story. It wasn't easy, but I hope it's good.  
**

 **I have published a new TVD Self-Insert fanfiction. If you're a fan of that fandom, then you should try reading 'The Hanging Tree'.**

 **Please leave a review.**

 **Summary: About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]**

 **Have fun.**

* * *

 _Chapter 7  
_

 _For We Once So Loved The World_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where Their Childhood Found An Abrupt End_

* * *

 _"Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up."_

 _― Sarah Ockler, Twenty Boy Summer_

 _"You can't love your mother or father if you don't also have the capacity to grieve their deaths and, perhaps even more so, grieve parts of their lives."_

 _― Glenn Beck, The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life_

* * *

Father took us outside _that_ day.

The sun was shining brightly and the flowers growing on the small patches of grass through the whole city were in full bloom. People holding ice-cream and wearing as little as was possible and still decent greeted us on the streets. Many sat outside of cafes and restaurants, enjoying the unusually pleasant day.

We went to a nearby park. The barking of dogs and children's laughter accompanied us while we walked down the dirty path.

It was magical in a way that I could not easily explain. But watching all that happiness and beauty surrounding me, it was hard to believe how cruel the world I had found myself in truly was. For a moment I was able to forget who and _what_ I was.

For a moment I could pretend that I was a _normal_ child.

And like every child I enjoyed and would forever remember that one fateful day I spend with my father and twin brother in a park near our home. Without a care in the world, I wandered along the dirty path and played catch with a delighted Ken. Hid behind a tree and planned a surprise attack, which ultimately ended with me poking him from behind and proceeding to run away, screaming 'You're it'. I ran and ran and slipped on the grass when he started chasing me, only to start laughing once Ken tripped over my body and fell down as well.

Soft green grass cushioned us as we laughed at our shared misfortune and enjoyed the few sun rays reaching our faces through the thick canopy of a large oak tree.

My fingers brushed against a daisy and I fondly remembered a time when I had used to make floral wreaths with a women who had once been my mother. The bitter sting that normally accompanied such memories surprisingly did not manage to pierce my heart.

A delighted laugh passed my lips.

Daintily, I plucked the white flower from the ground and put it into my hair. Afterwards my hand reached out for another daisy, which soon found its new home attached to Ken's dark tresses.

Before he could comment on his new accessory or try removing it because of how 'girly' it was, a grasshopper that jumped over his left foot caught his eye and steered his attention away from me.

His hands reached out to catch the tiny insect but it was too fast. The grasshopper disappeared in the blink of an eye.

That did not deter my brother, only heightened his joy as he started chasing the small creature across the meadow.

Father soon joined us and sat down, leaning his back against the dark bark of the ancient oak tree. From the looks of it—the thickness of its trunk and the impossible height its longest branches seemed to reach—the tree had to be at least one and a half centuries old.

From our place in the middle of the meadow we scooted over to him and I leaned my upper body against his left side. Ken stayed by his legs, an exited expression on his face.

I could see red spider lilies growing in the distance. A whole bed of them grew along the path we had just walked.

 _Lycoris radiata_

Flowers that supposedly grew in hell and guided the dead towards their next reincarnation. A soul would only have to follow a path along which those crimson flowers grew and it would never get lost in the afterlife. There were also some legends that said that if you met someone you would never see again, someone who would be forever lost to you, _red spider lilies_ would bloom along the path you both walked and accompany you till the other was out of sight.

''Beautiful, aren't they?'' Father asked after gently putting one of his hands on my head.

I nodded, not knowing what else I should do.

''Many people believe them to be a bad sign, a symbol of death, but that's not how we should see them." He murmured, gently scratching his stubbly chin. "The red spider lily, it does not stand for death or an early end. It represents a new beginning and the possibility of change; reincarnation.''

Ken tilted his head cutely to the side. ''What's rearcarnation?''

My right hand flew towards my mouth to stop the bell like giggles from escaping my lips. There was no need for my brother to think that I was laughing and making fun of him. I wasn't, I truly wasn't. The young boy was just too adorable for me to be able to hide the silent admiration and love I held for him inside of me completely.

Father gazed at me with a knowing look in his eyes, then his attention slid towards my twin. ''Reincarnation, Ken, it's re-in-car-na-tion.''

''Reincarnation?'' He bit his lip, unsure if he had pronounced it right.

''That's right.'' Ruffling my brother's head gently, Kaneki Ryota gazed at us thoughtfully. ''How to explain? How to explain?'' In a manner that reminded me a lot of Ken, he tilted his head to the side and a sly glint appeared in his eyes. ''I know. How about a story?''

Ken, never one to say 'no' to a story, grinned widely and nodded his head. ''Yes! Yes!''

''What about you, Rei?'' After seeing my nod of agreement, he said, ''Very well, but this will be the story I promised you for today, there won't be another one before you go to sleep. I have to go out tonight.''

 _(I should have said 'no'.)_

Moving slightly forward, I adjusted my position so it was more comfortable. ''I'm fine with it.''

''Alright.'' He rubbed his hands against each other and then proceeded to start a tale that certainly wasn't meant for the ears of a child. "Many centuries ago a young girl named Satsuki was gathering healing herbs in the forest. She was a gentle soul and the apprentice of the village's healer. Knowing that she would one day take over the position of her master, the villagers showed great respect to the girl and would have done almost anything to gain her favor.

Satsuki might have been gentle but that did not make her naive. She knew when to reject non-genuine offers and whom she had to stay wary of. She knew that for every little favor a payment would be expected. A payment she most likely would not be able to provide.''

Ken sneezed, startling both Father and me. Fortunately, the man was already used to interruptions during our story time and did not let anything we did deter him from finishing his task.

He only pulled a tissue out of his trouser's pockets and gave it to my twin. Another one was put into my hand.

Just in case I would need it, you know.

''Thus the girl made a mistake she would come to regret many years later. Instead of asking a male member of her little village to accompany her into the farther parts of the woods that surrounded their home, Satsuki decided that it would be better to go by herself and not owe anyone something she could not repay.

She wandered into the dark woods alone and found the one person she should have never met.

 _Nomori no Izuna_

The heir of the ancient and noble Nomori clan.

If fate had been just, those two people would have never met. They would have never met on that large meadow filled with white spider lilies.'' He stopped dramatically, his voice changing, becoming deeper and quieter. ''But fate had never been kind to any living being. There came a time in everybody's life in which they could do nothing but curse fate's cruelty.

The same applied to the young noble.''

How impossibly true that statement was. I myself was the living prove for that and one day my twin would be as well.

In the whole world there was nothing crueler than _fate._

''Izuna had been injured and separated from his entourage during a hunt. The young man had a large gash on his right thigh and could barely move. He had managed to stumble towards the large tree he was leaning against, using the last of his strength to try finding cover and safety in the sakura tree's large shadow.

Someone would certainly find and help him. His father's subjects could not risk returning to the Nomori estate without him, thus he knew it was only a matter of time until help arrived.

Surprisingly, help did not come in the form of a familiar face. Izuna had not expected to see a foreign face so deep inside the forest, but it did end up being a fortunate coincidence.

At least that's what he thought at that time as he watched the dark haired girl cautiously step out of the tree's cover and onto the snow white meadow.'' Father's pointer finger and thumb grabbed a lock of my shoulder-length hair and raised it delicately into the air. ''Her dark tresses were pinned in an easy design on top of her head and her clothes by no means managed to impress him. What did manage to catch his interest was the basket in her left hand and what he thought to be herbs sticking out of it.

 _Was she a healer?_ As soon as that thought entered his mind, the young man started considering his options.

Even after what felt like an eternity his leg still had not stopped bleeding. He had no idea how long it would take for one of his father's subjects to find him and he also knew that the forest would get even more dangerous by nightfall. But there was also the fact that the girl was a stranger. He did not know who she was and what she might want to do to him once she found his identity out.''

Until now the story did not sound so bad, just like one of those typical boy meets girl stories. But I knew better than to think that it would end well. The stories told to ghoul children were vastly different from those told to human ones.

We were oftentimes told stories about monstrous investigators and all that they would do to us should we get caught. Of course, they weren't too bad, too much in detail. However, they still had a content that should not be told to a child.

Quite honestly, Father had told us only a few stories that did not end with someone bleeding or dying.

And this one would certainly be no better.

''At the end the choice was taken from him. The girl spotted him with her bright _green_ eyes not long after she appeared in the meadow and gasped in surprise at the sight of him.

 _''Who are you?''_ Her soft voice was carried to him by the wind.

One thing led to another and after hearing his introduction, Satsuki decided to help the young man in need. She did not want to have the blood of a noble on her hands, so she patched up his wounds and left before anyone else could spot her.

Just before she disappeared completely out of his sight, the young man called out to her, _''Meet me here during the next full moon.''_

And thus started a love story that could and should have never been.''

Ken's hand grabbed my own and squeezed. He was anxious and even though he knew by now that it was very unlikely for this tale to have a happy end, he probably still hoped that there would be an 'happily ever after'.

Father's deep voice continued without a break. ''They met in the meadow the night in which the moon shined the brightest and the night following that meeting they came together once again. They met over and over again and against all reason fell in love with each other.

What an atrocious act they had committed. A noble and a commoner falling in love with each other was unacceptable in their simple minded society.

Measures were taken to stop their love. Measures that forced the noble to marry another woman.

Nomori no Izuna did not have a choice, so he married a woman he held no love for and unknowingly condemned Satsuki to an early death.''

And here came the part we were all dreading.

No matter how much I tried not to, I could not help interpreting things into this story. Simple minded? Our society was certainly simple minded.

The forbidden love story part. Well, if the truth about our origin ever came out and Mother got caught, then the CCG would most probably sentence her to death. Helping a ghoul was a criminal offense. Giving birth to its halfbreed children would without a doubt be punished with death.

Our society having something against it was as probable as getting struck by lightning.

 _Lovely._

''The young healer could not take the thought of her love now belonging to another woman. She could not live with the fact that what they once had would never be again, so she came to their meadow on the day of Izuna's wedding for one last time.''

Father's hands grabbed a wrist from each of us and applied a slight pressure, not enough to hurt but enough to make a point. ''A small dagger she had always carried with herself for protection was used to slit her dainty wrists.

Crimson blood stained the white spider lilies red.'' The way he said 'blood', it send shivers down my spine.

''Izuna, hoping to see his love for one last time, came to the meadow to find her dead.

He continued visiting the place where they had met for the first time and witnessed how the pure spider lilies changed their color from white to red.

It would be years later that a person besides him ventured into the meadow.

The girl—a daughter of another noble—smiled once she saw him, her familiar _green_ eyes shining with joy, and whispered breathlessly, _''Izuna.''_

The man died the following day. His blood joining Satsuki's among the flowers.'' Father finished his tale with a smile, as if he found some sick pleasure in their suffering and rather tragic end. And maybe he did. Maybe he liked how tragic, how similar to our own lives it was.

I did not like it. In fact, I hated the fact that ghoul's were forced to prepare their children for their bloody future in such a way. That they had to de-emphasize the meaning of life in an act that should have normally been so innocent.

I hated that our childhood was stolen from us each day a little more.

And I hated that I knew that he was right. That preparing us for the worst in such ways would one day guarantee our survival.

Oh, there was no word that could describe how much I hated all this. How much I actually hated this _world._

''Do you now understand, Ken, Rei?'' Father asked following a brief silence.

I did not think that Ken would actually understand, but like always my brother managed to surprise me. ''The little girl was Satsuki?''

''Yes, Ken, that little girl was Satsuki.'' An approving look appeared in his eyes. ''Do you know how that's possible?''

He didn't, but I did.

The rebirth of a soul into a new body after death. There was no one in this world who could tell them more about this phenomenon than me.

I knew everything a mortal could possibly know about reincarnation.

A day did not pass during which I did not wish that I didn't.

Seeing Ken shaking his head in denial, Father continued his explanation. ''After a person dies, they don't just disappear. People believe in many things. Heaven, hell, ghost and many other things, among them reincarnation. The Buddhists believe that after you die, you are reborn as someone or something else. While your body dies, your soul keeps existing. That's what reincarnation is.''

Well, I guessed I should consider myself lucky that I did not end up reborn as a fly or something.

Even though it might have had a more pleasant ending than this so called life will ever have.

How morbid.

Slowly, Father stood up, carefully making sure that he did not harm me in doing so. I would not have fancied falling face first onto the grass because he stood up abruptly and did not make sure that I wasn't leaning too heavily against him.

''It's getting late. We should start going home, but fear not, there is still enough time for us to stop by the playground and play on the swings.'' Helping us stand up and dusting off our clothes, Kaneki Ryota grinned mischievously. ''But we have to hurry or your Okaa-san will be angry with me.''

He knew exactly what he had to say to manipulate us into doing whatever he wanted. Faster than I thought possible, Ken grabbed my right hand and started dragging me down the path we had walked earlier, leaving our laughing father behind. We were running and running, too fast for it to be considered safe, especially for someone our age.

The last time we had fallen onto the soft grass, this time we would not be so lucky.

It was my brother's exhilarated laughter that stopped from putting an end to our running. Children fell down all the time and Father would make sure that we did not hurt ourselves too seriously.

Laughing—Yes, Ken's happiness was so infectious that it could improve even _my_ mood.—I enjoyed the wind caressing my flushed cheeks and the disappearing sun rays warming my body.

A ball flew over us, almost grazing our heads before it landed in the bed of red spider lilies. My brother did not even notice, so blinded by the happiness of the moment.

Honestly, I did not care either. While I would have normally at least turned to glare at the perpetrator, I did nothing this time. There was no need for me to destroy this whole experience for my brother.

Besides, it was probably just some kid that had done it by mistake.

We continued running for a while, our stamina better than that of a normal child. In this world it did not mean all that much. Normal rules did not apply here. We might have been superior to the humans our age right now but that would change in a few years. The investigators and their abnormal physical powers proved that.

And that was one thing I never did understand. Why were the humans of this world _so strong?_

Was it because of the RC cells? Both humans and ghouls possessed them, just in different quantities. Did they make it possible for the investigators to fight evenly with ghouls? If so, didn't their prejudice make them into hypocrites?

One of the things that made ghouls different from humans was the amount of RC cells they had. From what I understood, the more RC cells one had, the stronger one was. Or at least it applied in most cases.

If I wasn't mistaken, an average human had a RC factor of about 200 till 500. Would that mean that civilians had a lower RC factor than investigators? Was there a RC factor restriction for those who wanted to become investigators? Perhaps they had to have an RC factor of at least 300 or something like that.

It would certainly explain their strength.

Because how else could a normal human fight someone like the One-eyed Owl. There just wasn't anything else that could logically explain the difference in strength between the humans of this world and my old one.

And while I might have accepted the excuse of 'everyone being able to attain whatever they want as long as they were determined enough' or 'you just have to believe in yourself' when this world was still just an anime, I could not accept it now. This world was real. These people were real.

And the danger they represented was more than that. In this world a 'human' could be stronger than the prey he or she hunted and it made me wonder who the real _monster_ was.

I couldn't say that ghouls were 'good', but neither were the humans. Instead of trying to understand us, they hunted what they perceived as a threat. And the sad thing was that this war did not have to be. I was sure that the CCG could create many wondrous things with its resources and intelligence, among them _artificial meat._

They had to feed the prisoners of Cochlea with something.

Not every ghoul would take this opportunity, however, that did not mean that the opportunity shouldn't exist. There were good and bad people among my kind, just as there were many murderers and criminals among the humans.

If it weren't so, there wouldn't be any prisons.

But the fact remained that neither the CCG, nor the human population even wished to understand us. They preferred to slaughter us all.

Stumbling, I caught myself seconds before my body would have collided with the path, saving Ken from the same fate in the process. Thinking too much about all this wouldn't do me any good. There was nothing that one person could do against an organization like the CCG and as long as I did not want to form a group similar to the Aogiri Tree, there wasn't anything I could do to fight them.

And quite honestly, I could never form a group that would end up killing as many people as they did.

 _Life, it did not matter whether it was human or ghoul, was too precious for it to be destroyed by something so vulgar._

''You alright, Rei?'' Running, my twin turned his head towards me. That's one of the things one just shouldn't do while running at 'high speeds'. Luckily, nothing happened and my common sense quickly forced me to turn his head forward with my left hand.

''I'm fine. Just tripped over my own feet.'' Looking forward and concentrating on the path ahead of me, I decided that it was time to teach my brother a lifesaving lesson. ''You can't look behind when you are running. That's how the stupid people always die in the movies.''

His eyes widened and mouth opened in slight shook. ''I'm not like them! Not like those stupid blonde girls.''

Yeah, we had watched some American horror movies on the few occasions our parents left us alone at home. They weren't too extreme, mind you. Most consisted of the typical teenage group going somewhere they shouldn't and the blonde bimbo who died first after stumbling on a tree root. And lets not forget about the obviously fake looking blood.

None of them had any explicit material or something like this and I think Father left them at home deliberately. Just another thing used to de-emphasize us.

Our parents just weren't the prime example of good parenting. Our mother allowed us to watch 'Princess Mononoke'. It had actually the same name here.

But it could have been worse.

Our parents weren't perfect, but they were _good._

 _(If only I had known.)_

We reached the playground before our father. It was surrounded by a short wooden fence, its green paint chipping at some places. There was a small entrance a few feet away from us; a wooden gate that could be easily pushed open.

Not many children were still there. All of them accompanied by at least one parent.

Luck seemed to be on our side today because both swings at the other end of the playground were currently free. Choosing not to risk someone occupying them while we waited for Father, Ken ran forward and grabbed the chains holding the dark planks.

I followed after him knowing better than to leave my brother to his own devices. The boy truly knew how to get himself unintentionally into trouble. He was a master in that domain.

The playground was filled to the rim with sand. Not the soft white sand from some beaches, but the dark and rather unpleasant to the touch kind of sand. It irritated my toes, the sandals adorning my feet offering them no protection. The sand filled the small spaces between my tiny toes and scratched my skin in a very uncomfortable way.

Unlike me, Ken was able to cross the distance between the entrance and the swings quite easily, after all, he had not been forced to wear such atrocious shoes as I had. Mother could be very frustrating and commanding sometimes. If she wanted something, then she would get it.

Even if it meant me wearing shoes I had not even thought about buying since I had been eleven years old in my previous life.

Weirdly enough, I had always had an aversion for sandals.

Mother did not care for my opinion in that matter.

Finally reaching the swings after what felt like a small eternity, I pushed myself onto my toes and laid my stomach down on the dark plank. Swinging my legs up and down, my poor feet were freed of the disgusting sand.

"What are you doing, Rei?" Father asked, reaching the playground only a few minutes following our own arrival. Amusement was rolling off of him in almost tangible waves.

Pouting slightly, I moved my head to look at him over my left shoulder. ''The sandals are no good.'' Tiny toes wiggled. ''My feet are dirty.''

Only after the statement left my mouth did I notice how ridiculous it must have sounded. With my pouty lips and scrunched up eyebrows, I must have been quite the comical sight. At least father had the decency to not outright laugh at me.

He still chuckled, though.

''I see.'' Hands sneaked themselves under my armpits and heaved my body into the air. Hanging above the swing, I heard my father say, "If I might be honest, I don't like those kinds of shoes either, but I do know better than to fight your mother on such a matter. Hopefully, you do too."

Slowly, he lowered me onto the swing until I was sitting comfortably on it. Instinctively, both of my hands grabbed the chains on each of my sides.

Ken, who had been dangling off the swing by holding onto the plank's sides and keeping his feet above the ground, was also put on the swing. ''Thanks, Otou-san.''

And then we were _flying._ The swings carrying us high into the air, suspending us there for an endless second and then pulling us back and back until I could see the ground before me. Head tilted slightly to the back, I could see the boundless sky stretching all around us. Blue, orange and pink hues mixed into an astonishing mirage of colors.

Even though the sun had yet to disappear behind the horizon, a vivid moon already hung high on the sky, almost becoming one with the partly cornflower colored abyss.

Had we not lived in Tokyo, I was certain I could have seen a few bright stars decorating the scenery.

Only half listening to the world around me, I heard Ken asking father to push us faster and higher. His delighted shrieks sounded like the purest of symphonies to me, creating the perfect background music for this extraordinary moment.

I laughed, a childish laughter of delight that accompanied that of my twin brother.

To look at him, only at and for him, I turned my head away from the magnificent spectacle and saw the reason for why I was in this world.

Dark locks obscured a small part of his pale face from me. The wind blew them to and fro his face, but he did not seem to mind. A large grin adorned his mouth, showing one of his missing front teeth. It had fallen out just a few days prior.

His stormy gray orbs, identical to mine and yet so much more beautiful than my own could ever be, reflected the lovely sky and shined with an innocence I would never have. Joy radiated off him, infecting me and making me laugh and shriek in happiness even louder.

My eyes turned towards the sky once again, countless strands of black hair tickling my face.

Somewhere, not to far away from us, a dog was barking loudly. The wind caressed my soft skin and blew a few leaves from the ground into the air. They danced and twirled around the playground, their color a deep and lush green.

I had no idea how long we spend on those swings, but by the time Father stopped us and helped us onto the ground, the sky had turned into a navy blue chasm that contrasted heavily with the fair silvery moon.

The bright orb lightened our path home, the bustling nightlife of Tokyo accompanying us on our way.

Some might think that humans in this world did not dare to go outside when it was dark, but the truth could not have been any farther from that. They might have been more cautious than those of my old world, but there wasn't anything that could have actually stopped them from going out at night. Groups of teens still mingled on the streets, young adults visited the different night clubs and others were still on their way home after a long day of work.

And lets not forget about the occasional ghouls.

It was hard to differentiate between humans and ghouls, our mother's genes making our noses less than perfect and thus unable to smell the differences between both races.

However, it was the way they looked at us that alerted me to their presence. There weren't many, of course, just two or three, but their stares still made me highly uncomfortable.

Luckily, Father was there and if I might be honest it was probably only his presence that kept that one female ghoul away from us. He glared at her and muttered something I couldn't hear.

The fair haired female disappeared within seconds.

We arrived at our apartment in less than twenty minutes. Mother welcoming us with warm hugs once we entered our home. She helped us take a bath while Father warmed a glass of _blood_ for Ken and me.

It tasted better when it was warm and helped us fall asleep.

Just like warm milk had when I had still been human.

Father was the one who tucked us into our beds. Our parents had bought them for us when we finally outgrew our crib and put them near the wall on opposite ends of the room.

I would never forget the way his lips brushed softly against my forehead that night. How he oh so gently tucked me into my bed and brushed a few strands of hair away from my face.

How he quietly whispered that he loved us both and that we would see each other in the morning.

He closed the door when he left our room, immersing it in an almost complete darkness. Our only source of light was the full moon on the outside.

I heard the apartment door closing softly and knew that Father had left our home to finish whatever endeavor he had mentioned earlier.

 _''Sleep well, my sweet children. We will see each other tomorrow.''_

A whispered promise.

I should have known better. I should have expected this.

Come morning, father still wasn't back. It had happened before, we did not worry.

But he did not come home the next day either. Neither the day after.

 _Father never came back._

* * *

 _"The ground was silvery, as if some stars had fallen there."_

 _― Heather O'Neill_


	8. To Catch A Firefly

_Edited on the 8th of August 2017._

* * *

 **I'm not sure if I'm completely satisfied with this chapter, so I might end up changing it again.**

 **Anyway, to answer some of the questions asked in the reviews:**

 **kitsunelover300:**

 **1\. Ryota looks a lot like an older Kaneki. He has slightly messier hair and is also a little taller than him.**

 **2\. Yes, Rei looks like a female version of Kaneki. Dark hair and gray eyes. Similar face structure and all that.**

 **3\. I plan to let Hide be a part of this story, but he won't be as important as he was in canon.  
**

 **Smiling Seshat:**

 **1\. I understand why you limit yourself to only three uncompleted stories, however, it would make no difference to me. I write for what I have inspiration. If I have no inspiration, then I won't write a new chapter. Whether I have one or ten stories doesn't make a difference to me. Inspiration is what matters.**

 **2\. How did she not notice that she was a ghoul? A part of her did actually notice, but she preferred to ignore it until she was directly confronted by the truth. Besides, she ate whatever her parents gave and did not think all that much about the food. There were way more important things to think about than why her mother wasn't giving her any vegetables.**

 **xXlaniidaexX:**

 **1\. Yes, there will be a small time jump in the near future. Nothing too big but it should be a few years. And to your question about Touka and Ayato. I don't know if they will meet in that exact situation, but I did plan to make Ayato a part of the story at some point.**

 **Questions that were asked more often:**

 **1\. Yes, Rei has only read the first Tokyo Ghoul manga and watched some of the anime, thus she doesn't know what is awaiting her in the near future.**

 **2\. Yes, this is definitely AU.**

 **3\. Akemi is a human and Ryota is a ghoul  
**

 **4\. I'm not sure if I understood it correctly, but from what I know there are 'different kinds' of ghouls. The normal ones like Touka, the quinx (not sure if they are even considered ghouls), artificial ones like Kaneki, those half-humans like Arima and half-ghouls like Eto.**

 **If I understood it all the right way, then Rei and Ken are half-ghouls like Eto. They have to eat human flesh and cannot eat normal food. They are more ghoul than human.**

 **5\. Pairings? Until now I have only one pairing that will definitely happen. The rest is still undecided. If you have some favored pairing then tell me about it in a review or PM. I might use some of them.  
**

 **6\. Many of you don't like Rei's development and call her something along the lines of whiny. I do understand why you think so and also know that she has to change in the future. You don't have worry about her wallowing in self-pity for the whole story, but you need to understand that I want her to seem realistic. No normal human would just wake up and say 'Oh cool, I'm a ghoul. Human flesh is just so yummy.'**

 **Rei is a teenager who suffered a traumatic death and was forced into a horrible situation. She knows what the future has in store for her and is _terrified_ _._ There is also the fact that she doesn't know what has changed. Not only because of her existence, but also because Kaneki isn't human.**

 **Her change in character will be slow, but it has already started. There will still be times when she reverts to her old self-pitying self and there will come a time where she will change into something not even she could have expected.**

 **You all want her to save Ken and that's alright, I want it too. However, I also want my story to be at least slightly realistic and Rei to not be a Mary Sue. If she just woke up after dying and proceeded to selflessly save the world then that's exactly what she would be.**

 **Besides, I plan to follow canon but not in ways some of you probably expect. Some things will happen and some won't. I will try making Hide a part of the story, but things cannot be as they were in the anime or manga. Ken and Rei not being human makes sure of it. In the anime and manga Kaneki meets Hide at school, yet I don't plan on actually making them go to school. It would be too dangerous and the risk will outweigh the positive outcome, so Hide will have to appear later and differently.**

 **There is also the fact that the Ken in my story does not need Hide in the way the one in canon did. Rei has taken his place.**

 **God, I'm ranting, aren't I? Anyway, if you have anymore questions, you are free to ask them. I'm not sure if I will answer them in the next chapter or once again wait a while for a few to accumulate.**

 **I hope that's acceptable.**

 **nariai  
**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. Self-Insert  
**

 **Have fun.**

* * *

 _Chapter 8  
_

 _To Catch a Firefly_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where The Stars Were Falling_

* * *

 _"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."_  
 _― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed_

* * *

 _Father did not come back._

We waited for a week. It was a common occurrence for him to be gone for a few days at a time. Sometimes he had been gone for even a week, thus we did not start worrying until exactly that amount of time passed.

The problem was that he did not come home even after a weeks time had gone by. Neither when the amount doubled and tripled.

Three weeks without a sign of him. Three weeks had gone by and Father still hadn't arrived home.

Ken was too young to truly understand what was going on, however, Mother and I weren't and so we were forced to face the fact that Kaneki Ryota wasn't coming back. That fact was accompanied by the heartbreaking assumption that Father was actually _dead._

What other reason would he have had to be gone for so long? Why else had three weeks passed without a single word from him?

And quite honestly, him being dead, no matter how cruel it might have sounded, was the best option. Otherwise there were only two other things I could think of that might have happened to him. One was worse than the other because frankly either Father had chosen to abandon us or someone had managed to catch him and was currently holding him somewhere as a prisoner. Whether it would be the CCG or another ghoul, it made no difference.

The forced stay at the side of either of those two would certainly be a nightmarish experience. When it came to the first option, I did not even want to think about it.

I did not wish to associate my _father_ with betrayal. I did not even want to truly consider the possibility that he might have actually left us alone without any true means to fend for ourselves. Mother would certainly do her best to care for us, but there was only so much she could do as a human.

I wished that I could say that Mother was strong enough for the three of us, but I knew the truth.

Mother was a gentle soul. She would break under too much pressure.

 _(If only I had known.)_

In the month of his disappearance I went through the three of the five stages of grief.

 _Denial. Anger. Acceptance._

For a while I tried to convince myself and all those around me that Father would come back soon. That perhaps he could not find any suitable prey in our ward, so he had to travel to another one. But then days and weeks passed and he still wasn't home. Slowly, my hope started to change into anxiety and then into anger. The anger was accompanied by a rather unhealthy dose of resentment that actually made me loath my own father. For a while I believed that he had actually chosen to leave us, raising half-breed children having finally become too much for him. During that time I had not even been able to force myself to look at the few pictures of him that hung on the wall of our living room.

However, being angry was too _tiring._ That constant resentment and burning rage were too much for my young body and left me exhausted most of the time. Besides, I knew better than to wallow too much in self-pity—I had done and would do so enough in this new life.—so it slowly changed into a kind of acceptance.

It wasn't easy to accept my father's disappearance. Especially because we had no closure. No idea whether he was alive or dead. Maybe even a prisoner somewhere. Knowing how cruel the world could sometimes be, he might have left us on his own accord.

Being in the dark about all that made our already bad situation even worse.

Unfortunately, we did not really have a choice in the matter. It was either move on or stay trapped in the past and most probably die.

Ken was lucky. He was still too young to understand what was going on and to remember our father in the future.

Mother and I, we did not have that luxury. We continued living our daily lives and forced ourselves to not think about the missing piece of our family, yet there was nothing that could ever fill the hollow hole Father had left behind.

There were nights during which I awoke in the middle of the night because I had to go to the bathroom. More often than not I found my mother sitting on the couch of our living room, a photo of our father in her hand and tears rolling down her cheeks and chin and then disappearing in the collar of her nightgown.

She did not cry in front of us, only gave us the brightest _fake_ smiles I had ever seen.

Perhaps I should have seen _it_ coming. No one could hold such a facade forever. The pressure of grief, hatred and despair always managed to break its victims. Mother would be no exception.

Her happy and strong facade started to crack about two and a half months after Father had left our apartment for the last time, when I finally realized why he had decided to go outside that night.

Our fridge was running low on _human meat._

Ghouls did not need to eat as often as humans did, however, children needed nutrition more often than adults. As infants we were fed with breast milk a few times every day. That slowly changed into one bottle of blood a day until it reached an organ of our choice a week. The older we got, the less often we had to eat.

Currently we were by an organ all two weeks. If we did not have any meat, then blood could become a temporary solution.

As it was, we had eaten the rest of our reserves a little more than two weeks ago—I did not realize this until I actually dared to open our fridge, only to find it completely empty.—and we were _hungry._

 _Two hungry ghoul children._

''What are you doing, Rei?'' Mother was standing behind me, her voice tired and resigned. ''You shouldn't be here, my darling. It's late. Why aren't you sleeping?''

And suddenly I felt truly sorry for her. Not even three months ago her husband had died and now she had to raise two ghoul children all by herself. I did not doubt the fact that Akemi had no idea where from she could get anything for us to eat. Other than murdering one of our neighbors, of course.

Just like us, Mother was in a rather unpleasant situation. At home she had two starving children, whom she had nothing to feed with. From what I knew her job wasn't a pleasant one either and she seemed to be under a lot of stress.

''I couldn't sleep, Okaa-san.'' Pulling my hand away from the fridge handle, I turned to her. Our eyes met and in the darkness of the kitchen I could see my glowing orb reflected in her own eyes. _''We are hungry, Okaa-san.''_

She swallowed visibly. ''I...I...Go back to bed, Rei. You will eat something tomorrow.'' Her eyes darkened and a shiver went down my spine. In the dim room Kaneki Akemi looked more frightening than ever before.

 _(I should have noticed the monster growing inside of her.)_

''Good night, Okaa-san.'' I turned around and scurried out of the room. For a moment I actually feared what she would do. Whether it was to me or someone else. I had accepted that I had to eat human flesh to survive, however, there was a darkness in Mother's eyes that made me actually fear what she was capable of.

I knew that Father was rather merciful when it came to his victims, but I had no idea what Akemi was willing to do to get us something to eat.

And quite honestly, I did not want to know.

* * *

I awoke to a tantalizing smell, eyes wide open and mouth salivating.

My empty stomach grumbled loudly and I turned so that I was laying on my right side. Ken's gaze met my own and our eyes glowed red with hunger.

Two days ago we had still been alright. But now my stomach seemed to knot itself together and hunger pains assaulted my midsection. With heavy limbs I pushed myself upward and opened my mouth only to close it again.

It was dry and my voice cracked once I finally spoke. ''We...we should go to the kitchen. It seems as if Okaa-san has prepared some breakfast for us.''

He stood up and one of Father's old shirts fell down onto the floor. For a few nights now he had been sleeping in that shirt, the scent contained in it a small comfort. Another time I might have found the sight amusing. The shirt was way too big for him, reaching his feet and brushing the wooden floor of our room. Ken would have to watch out or he would stumble on it.

But now was not the time for amusement.

Deciding that after the last night it would be better for me to take the lead, I moved towards the door and opened it.

 _Sweet. It smelled so wonderfully sweet._

Our tiny feet moved in tandem and we reached the kitchen faster than I thought to be possible.

And there, on the kitchen table, stood two glasses full of _blood._

My mouth water and I moved forward unconsciously. Climbing the chair was easy and slowly red seemed to color the edges of my vision. A part me noticed that Ken was following my example, climbing the seat opposite of me and reaching out for one of the glasses.

With fear and an unknown ferociousness my own hands snapped forward and took hold of one of the glasses. Something that sounded similar to a possessive growl passed my lips and then the sweet liquid was touching my tongue and sliding down my throat.

I had never tasted something so _heavenly_ before. Sweet with a tinge of sourness. It slid down my throat and soothed its rawness as well as my hunger.

Until now I had never known what true hunger was and I knew that I still had no idea, but this experience was enough to show me that I never wanted to experience what real hunger meant for ghoul.

We had gone without any food for less than three weeks and a part of me had been already ready to attack my sweet brother for the blood. I feared what would happen if we ever had to go on without food for more than three weeks.

 _In a massacre, that's how it would most likely end._

''I did not hear you leaving your room.'' Mother's voice startled me and my luckily empty glass fell out of my hand. It shattered on the floor underneath me and stained it slightly with blood.

''Oh Kami, are you alright, Rei?'' Cautious of the sharp shards, Mother moved into the kitchen and reached out to me with her left hand.

My whole body froze. I could smell antiseptic and blood. There was a slightly stained bandage covering her hand and with a sickening realization I suddenly knew how Mother had acquired that day's breakfast.

 _She had fed us with her own blood._

For a moment I wanted to throw up. My eyes widened and looked over her whole form, searching for another injury. I felt sick, truly sick.

It was one thing to eat people I did not know, it was a completely other thing to realize that I had just drunk my own mother's blood. And the worst about it was that a part of me knew that there had been no other choice. Had we not eaten anything that day, then we just might have devoured Akemi tomorrow.

We were young, uncontrolled and ravenous.

Not a good mix for a ghoul.

Had Mother not fed us with her own blood then we just might have killed her in the near future.

''Are you alright, Okaa-san?'' Ken asked, biting his lip guiltily.

 _He knew._

He knew what our mother had just done for us and realized how wrong it actually was. A part of me was glad while another wanted to weep for him.

I knew what this meant. My brother would never be like the once fictional Kaneki Ken, but that did not stop him from having many of his attributes. And if Ken suddenly started seeing our food for what it truly was, then it wouldn't end well for him.

 _It wouldn't end well for any of us._

* * *

 _"Winter is coming."_  
 _― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones_


	9. A Lost Childhood

_Edited on the 10th of August 2017._

* * *

 _Some of you might have noticed that I have started editing 'Metempsychosis'. I have done my best to correct all of my mistakes and hopefully this story is now as good as it can be without me rewriting the whole thing._

 _Apparently, deleting a chapter shows up as an update. I am truly sorry if anyone was happy about this or the previous supposed update. Chapter one and two as well as ten and eleven have been put together, that's why I needed to delete some things._

 _Anyway, I haven't really changed anything when it comes to the plot. There are a few more sentences describing Rei's death, but the rest were just some grammatical or spelling mistakes, so you don't really have to read the whole story anew._

 _I will try updating the next chapter soon, though I haven't started writing it yet._

 _nariai_

* * *

 **This wasn't an easy chapter to write and I am not completely satisfied with it. I had to change the rating of this story because there are some graphic scenes in this chapter.  
**

 **Thank you all for reviewing and supporting this story.  
**

 **Some self-promoting: I have published two new stories. A Bleach Drabble-Story and a Self-Insert into Vampire Knight. Check them out if you like those fandoms.**

 **There is a poll on my profile which will help me choose Kaneki's pairing. Although I do have to admit that I am a complete Touken fan. Have you read the last few chapters?! (Spoiler alert here) Touka is pregnant. Sadly, I'm not sure if that's actually a good thing. Still, I do wish for them to have a happy ending, despite knowing that it is highly unlikely in the world of Tokyo Ghoul.  
**

 **Before you read chapter nine, I would like to say that I'm sorry if I offended anyone. This wasn't easy to write and I can't claim to truly know anything about this topic.**

 **Once again, I apologize if I offended anyone.**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. Self-Insert  
**

 **Have fun.**

* * *

 _Chapter 9  
_

 _A Lost Childhood  
_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where The Winter Started  
_

* * *

 _"I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be." — John Cheever_

 _"Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul."_  
 _― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"_

* * *

There was shuffling outside our room. Bright light shone through the small gap between door and floor and illuminated the previously dark space.

I could hear a pair of keys falling to the ground and Mother's quiet cursing. Then there was another voice. Someone foreign and strange. Someone most definitely _male._ ''Why so angry? Nothing happened.''

Mother moved away from our room, most likely into the kitchen. I could hear the tinkering of keys being put into the small bowl that stood on a shelve in our hallway and then her voice as clearly as if she was standing next to me. ''I have two children in that room, so please do try being more quiet.'' She exhaled loudly, her tone changing from irritated to something akin to a _purr_. ''Come. I'll show you the way.''

Show him the way? Who the hell was the man and what was he...

... _Oh._

A loud moan filled the silence of our home. My eyes widened and I looked to the side to make sure that Ken was still soundly asleep. To my relief he was, so I did not have to worry about him witnessing something he shouldn't.

But that did not stop me from hearing what happened next.

The door to my _parents'_ bedroom clicked open and the man must have accidentally walked into my father's bookshelf because some objects collided loudly with the floor. This time Mother did not reprimand him for his loud behavior. Akemi giggled as she carelessly discarded her heels.

''Such soft skin.'' The stranger whispered huskily. ''Let me help you with that dress.''

Slowly and sensually a zipper was slid open. Clothes rustled and the bed squeaked. Mother panted slightly and I closed my eyes. As the seconds passed by, I was beginning to feel like some peeping tom. Though it wasn't as if I wanted to witness this.

 _My mother sleeping with a man other than my father._

I might not have been truly a child, but that did not make this situation any less awkward. Especially when the stranger started grunting dirty things into the silence of our home. '' _Fuck._ You're so good. Such a tight little pussy you have.''

Mother's moaning intensified and was soon accompanied by the stranger's grunts. The bed in my _parents'_ bedroom creaked loudly and the man grumbled hoarsely, _''Yes, such a nice ass.''_

He started moaning even louder and I heard the sound of flesh slapping against flesh. Mother cried out, whether it was from pleasure or pain I did not know.

'' _So good...''_ Some more panting and then silence from her. The man must have continued pounding into her, his moans getting louder with each second.

 _''Forgive me...''_ I almost missed the quiet whisper. Soft and filled with more emotion than I have ever heard in my mother's voice. A loud sob was masked by the sound of tearing flesh. The smell of _blood_ froze me in place and if possible my eyes widened even more than they already had. A shallow breath escaped my lips and perspiration gathered on my temple.

The man whimpered in pain and glass shattered against the floor. A body fell to the ground with a loud thud. _''Help...''_

Carefully, I raised myself and stepped onto the cool floor, the blanket that had covered my body silently pooled around my feet. Before I knew what was happening, the door of our room was already open and my feet leading me to my parents' bedroom.

The socks on my feet muffled my footsteps and after what felt like an eternity I finally reached my destination. The door was sightly ajar and made no sounds when I pushed it open a little farther.

 _Terror,_ the purest form of terror coursed through my veins when I saw what the darkness of the night failed to hide.

My nude mother sat upon the naked body of a middle aged man, both of them still joined at the middle. His head was turned in my direction, hazelnut brown eyes glazed over. Blood pooled around his body and his skin seemed to be loosing color with each second. Its pallor highlighted the dark shadows under his eyes.

 _He wasn't moving._

At that very moment I knew, without a doubt, that the man was dead.

Unfortunately, my mother did not seem to notice that as she continued stabbing a kitchen knife into his abdomen. Her face was illuminated by the silvery moon and her eyes looked _feral._ Up and down, up and down, her arms repeated that motion continuously. The knife pierced the man's skin again and again and _again._

Tilting to the side, I collided with the cabinet that stood next to the entrance. A few candles fell onto the floor, one of them hitting my toes painfully. Whimpering in distress, I looked towards my mother.

Motionless, she sat upon the man, her gaze slowly wandering in my direction. ''Rei...'' The knife slid out of her hands and clattered loudly onto the ground. ''I...I...You shouldn't be here.''

I could only stand there stock-still as she stood up, his member sliding out of her body and falling limply onto his stomach. Fluids trickled between her legs and crimson blood dripped down her nude form. Strands of mahogany hair clung to her sweaty face. ''Come here, Rei.'' A pale hand and long fingers reached out to me.

On trembling legs, I walked a step forward. The sweet smell of blood tickled my nose and I could feel how my eye bled red. Mother's lips quirked upwards in an unsettling manner and her hand once again prompted me to move forward. When I was finally in her reach, her left hand grabbed my shoulder in a just _slightly_ too tight grip and pushed me in her victim's direction. Slipping on the bloody floor, I fell to my knees right next to the corpse.

Saliva slid down my chin and I could practically taste the flesh on my tongue.

While I focused on the _food_ in front of me, Mother left the room. Her intention stayed hidden until it was too late. It was only when she came back with Ken in her arms that I snapped out of my trance.

Before I could have said something, reprimanded her for showing this to my brother, Ken had already rushed pass me and was gorging himself on the human's flesh.

Seeing the way he fed, feeling how the hunger was slowly overwhelming me, my instincts shouting at me to eat as long as there was still something left and knowing that there was nothing I could do anymore, I let the part of me that was human go. Something primal took over and blood filled my vision and mouth. It dripped down my chin as my tiny fingers found their way towards the stranger's abdomen. His skin showed no resistance when I pushed my hand into his body, gripping whatever organ I found first.

It just so happened to be the liver. I grasped the slippery flesh with both of my hands and lowered my face.

The tender flesh was spicy with a tinge of sourness. My hunger did not allow me to take some time to enjoy my meal, large bites slid down my throat and filled my empty stomach. Ken was sitting next to me and stuffing his mouth with one of the lungs.

Something touched my back softly and I realized that mother was kneeling behind us, rubbing both of our backs soothingly. She did not seem to mind the blood puddle under us, neither the fact that we were currently devouring a man she had murdered a few minutes ago.

Mother just continued gently rubbing our back until the moon disappeared and the bright sun took its place. Once the first sun rays hit our skin all the edible organs were gone and my backside hurt from being in the same position for too long.

The room looked as if a butcher had completed a weeks worth of work inside it and dried blood clung to most parts of my clothes and skin. Neither Ken nor Mother were in a better condition than I. If possible, Kaneki Akemi seemed to be even worse off.

Her eyes had a crazed quality to them and blood wasn't the only fluid that stained her skin. A sheen of sweat coated her whole body and there were a few bruises near her ribs. The man must have fought back, hitting mother's sensitive skin in the process.

Legs trembling, she raised herself and helped Ken and me onto our feet. ''Let's get us clean, hmm?''

She guided us into the bathroom with one hand on each of our heads. Even though there was a smile on her face, the woman seemed to be only a step away from a nervous breakdown. Only shallow breaths passed her lips and her fingers clutched our hair uncomfortably.

The light in the bathroom was too bright for my eyes and I had to blink a few times. My vision finally focused on the sight of my mother helping Ken take off his clothes. I followed their example and discarded my own sleepwear.

And then the three of us stood together in our cramped shower and let the at first cold water wash away the signs of the sin we had committed the night before. Rusty blood gathered at the bottom of the shower and I wiggled my toes childishly.

I did not truly mind that man's death. By now I had learned that this was how the world worked. Ghouls ate humans to survive. There was no place for guilt in our existence. Of course there were still moments during which I found myself morally challenged. Killing a child would be something I hopefully would never have to do. Neither did I enjoy meaningless massacres and gorging myself with flesh when I was not hungry. While I knew that I could not care about my victims, that did not mean that I had to completely objectify them either.

 _(Besides, a part of me—Hisako, the part that was Hisako.—would always_ care _._ _)_

The thing that bothered me about the previous night the most, however, was my _mother._ She seemed to be near a nervous breakdown. After shoving a bottle of shampoo in my hands, she started washing her own skin. Almost compulsively she scrubbed a green sponge over her whole body until her skin was red and raw.

Cleaning myself as fast as I could, I put myself between Mother and Ken. He did not need to see her bleeding hands or the tears streaming down her cheeks. As soon as I felt mostly clean, I started helping Ken wash his own hair. The strands were glued together by the stranger's life fluid.

Afterwards, I assisted him in getting dressed and led him out of the bathroom before he could notice that there was something wrong with our mother.

 _(I tried to ignore that he had already witnessed more than any child ever should.)_

I left our mother alone in the bathroom, too tired to play the adult and unwilling to risk Ken's safety and innocence.

Her sobs echoed through our home, but the unsettling smile never did leave her face.

* * *

 _It_ started with a few mean words and slightly too tight grips that left pale bruises on our arms. Ghouls healed faster than humans, so any blemishes often disappeared a few hours after they formed.

But the truth was that our healing wasn't advanced enough to heal every wound within seconds. We were _malnourished_ children and that meant that our skin was not even half as resilient as I had thought it would be.

Besides, we still felt the pain of being hit and if I had to guess our skin wasn't hard enough to stop a knife from piercing our body.

As such our slight forms quickly started gathering small marks inflicted by our own _mother._ Like I said, everything was pretty _small_ at the beginning. Sometimes she would grasp our arms too tightly or raise her voice. There were also those remarks that questioned our intelligence in a roundabout way. Ken was too young to understand them and seeing the stress and pain Mother had to go through after Father's disappearance, it wasn't hard for me to just brush them aside.

I pitied her for a while. Kaneki Akemi was such a _gentle_ person and I knew that she was slowly breaking under the pressure that had been put upon her shoulders.

Since killing her first victim Mother had changed a lot. She seemed paranoid, frustrated, fearful and filled with more hatred than a single being could handle.

But none of that excused what she gradually started to change into.

By the time I truly realized that something was wrong and that we needed help, it was already too late. Being a child made it impossible for me to change anything. I couldn't go out hunting to alleviate mother's burden.

Suicidal wasn't among the characteristics I would use to describe myself.

Sadly, in this world full of prejudices I couldn't ask any human facility for help either. None of them would assists us when they finally found out _what_ we were. If we were lucky, they would let us run before calling the CCG.

I had never been lucky though, so I knew that seeking assistance from the humans wasn't a smart move. Being caught by the CCG would probably mean becoming test subjects. From what I knew, Ken and I were most likely one of the rarest natural occurrences in this world. There had probably only been about a handful of naturally born Half-Ghouls _ever._ No one would be stupid enough to let a possibility such as us actually escape.

As for Mother, she would most likely be executed for _treason._ Yeah, that's what getting involved with a ghoul was called here.

 _Treason of the worst kind._

They would most likely consider her relationship with our father to be more of a sin than all the _murders_ she had committed.

We lived in a world where murder had no meaning and child abuse was preferable to human help. That thought alone made the _despair_ I felt since finding out _what_ I was ten times worse. When I was still _Hisako_ something like this would have been unacceptable. Claiming that my previous life had been a completely safe one was impossible, but compared to my current situation it might have just as well equaled heaven. _  
_

However, I knew that thinking about the past would only make me feel worse. Knowing that somewhere in this wide web of universes a peaceful world existed, made me long for something I would never have.

 _Peace,_ how wonderful and yet unreachable that one word sounded.

As bloody as my hands now were, I knew that it was the one thing I could never even hope to receive. Not in this world of flesh eating monsters and not in any world that might come after this one.

I knew that not even reincarnating into a new body would grant me the peace I so yearned for. My mind would forever recall what I had seen with these eyes of mine and remind me of the deeds my parents and I had committed.

I would never forget the first man Mother had killed, nor would I ever stop remembering the morning after that horrible night. The smell of bleach still sometimes forced my nostrils to scrunch up.

In some of my dreams I saw Mother kneeling in a puddle of blood and cleaning the floor with bleach, a blank expression on her pale face and arms trembling. She did not manage to clean the stains fully, so she brought a giant carpet home a few days later.

Her next kills weren't so messy anymore, but she did start being a little more _artistic_ as the time passed.

She started enjoying it.

Perhaps it was the only way she could cope with the whole situation and continue doing it or maybe there had always been something dark inside of her. At the end I could not judge her for anything she did to those people because I knew that it was all for _us._ She was a mother who was ensuring her children's survival.

There was no other way. Mother knew no one who could help us and it wasn't if we could just go to the supermarket and order a pound of human meat.

That wouldn't go over well.

Yet, I was pretty sure that our current situation wouldn't go over well either. Since our father's disappearance Akemi had started working part time at a bar at night. She always came home after 2 p.m. and sometimes she brought a 'guest' with her. Afterwards Mother slept for a few hours, only to leave at about 9 o'clock in the morning once again. I had seen some of her work clothes, so guessed that she also worked as a cleaning lady in a hotel.

Whether she did all that because we needed the money or so that she could avoid us wasn't all that clear to me. But I did think that it was probably a mixture of both. I had read one of the letters we had received and easily found out that our rent had been raised and after all that she had done for us it was quite understandable why our mother would want to stay away from her two children.

Besides, I preferred her staying away to being hit during one of her anger fits.

Those could last for a while, though Akemi always seemed apologetic afterwards. Maybe that was the reason why I just couldn't fully _hate_ her. It was sick, the way our relationship developed.

Mother would first inflict injuries upon us and then treat them after her anger subsided. Being aware of the fact that I should have despised her, did not make the longing I currently felt for her any weaker.

Three years after father's death, I knew better than to leave our room without a good reason at night. Mother hated being woken up from her sleep and she could get especially vicious when it happened.

And yet, I could not have let Ken go alone to the bathroom. More than once had the toilette flushing disturbed her slumber, so I needed to make sure that my twin wouldn't forget not to use it after finishing his business.

Long story short, we did not flush the toilette, but Mother was still awoken by our nightly endeavors.

 _No child should fear their parent as we did._

When we left the bathroom she was already waiting for us, a furious expression distorting her face.

Trembling slightly, I had put myself between her and my brother. The truth was that I would have done anything to protect him, but that did not make me any less fearful and reluctant of actually putting myself in Mother's path.

By now Ken knew what he needed to do, and yet he always stayed to watch the beginning, trying to be brave when he shouldn't have to. I always begged him to leave before she turned on him. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

Fortunately, he did it this time and left before he had to see how my shoulder was dislocated. Often, I tried telling myself that it wasn't on purpose, but I knew that Mother had started giving us less to eat so that she could injure us more easily. Thus it wasn't hard for her to dislocate my shoulder. She just had to push me hard enough and I fell against the small cabinet in our hallway.

The _pain_ was unbelievable and I cried out loudly. For a moment I feared what would happen if one of the neighbors heard me, then I remembered that they just didn't _care._ We did not live in a good neighborhood and I doubted that anyone wanted to invite the police here.

Still, I bit my lip harshly to muffle my cries, tears freely falling from my eyes.

Akemi just looked down at me, her gaze harsh and cold. ''You both are just like your good for nothing father. A disappointment and one of my biggest mistakes.''

It hurt more than it should have to hear her say that. Being my tormentor, did not change that she was also my _mother._ The woman who gave birth to me, took care of me when I couldn't do anything by myself and gave up on everything for both Ken and me.

Ken was probably hearing it as well and suffering almost as much as I did. The only good thing was that tonight he would sleep without any blemishes on his tiny body.

Leaving, Mother managed to just heighten my suffering.

 _After sending me a frosty glare, she did not turn around even once._

As such, I had to reach my room by myself, without a helping hand or some blood to alleviate my pain. My arm hung helplessly at my side and my shoulder throbbed painfully as I entered our room.

Ken was waiting for me at the door, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. He helped me onto my bed, gently pulling the covers over me. Then he laid down next to me and started stroking my head softly.

 _I should have been comforting him, not the other way around.  
_

''Rei, does Okaa-san hate us?'' He asked, his voice nothing but a whisper.

And what could I say to that? I did not want to lie to him, but telling the truth wasn't an option either. ''I...I don't think she hates us, Ken.'' Sometimes _hate_ is not a strong enough word. ''But Okaa-san has done a lot to protect us, you know.''

His lips tilted slightly upwards and I caught one of his hands with my still functioning one. Bringing it to my lips, I gave it a kiss and blew a raspberry. Ken giggled and made an 'eww' sound. Next he pouted an wiped his hand against my blanket.

A few seconds passed in silence and the next time my brother said something his voice was heavy and serious. ''Are we going to be alright?''

Turning my head to look at him, I aggravated my wounded shoulder. A wince made the pain even worse and tears once again gather in my eyes. I had to bite my tongue to stop a whimper from escaping my lips. My twin really did not need to know how much our mother had actually hurt me.

Forcing a smile onto my lips, I grabbed his hand tightly. _''You_ 're going to be alright, Ken.''

* * *

During her two years at the university Mother had learned a few useful things. Among them how to treat a dislocated shoulder.

I did not sleep through the whole night, the pain too severe to even thing about rest. As my medical knowledge mostly consisted of knowing what pills one could take to alleviate a headache and what medicine was good against a fever, I could not treat my injury by myself.

Unfortunately, my shoulder wouldn't heal as long as it wasn't returned to its normal position. And so I had laid in bed for the whole night, eyes wide open and soft whimpers leaving my lips. I was lucky that Ken was a heavy sleeper, otherwise he would have seen me in a state he shouldn't ever have to witness.

The only unfortunate thing was that he awoke to the sight of my sweaty and pain contorted face. Immediately, I tried to smile and reassure my brother. ''It's a little early for you to wake up, don't you think, Ken?''

''Should I get Okaa-san?'' He asked once he saw my rather purplish skin, his lips trembling in trepidation and slight reluctance. It was quite obvious that he did not want to be alone with our mother.

Raising myself from the bed, I hissed loudly in discomfort. ''No, I'm fine.''

The problem was that I certainly wasn't fine and although I didn't want Ken to go to our mother, I myself wasn't far away from storming into her room and begging for mercy. In this new life I had received a lot of injuries, but none of them had ever been as severe as my current one.

Neither had any of them _hurt_ as much.

I gritted my teeth to keep myself from grimacing. Meeting Ken's gaze, I knew that I wasn't a good actress. ''Could you just give me some water?''

Scrambling from the bed, my brother instantly moved towards his own nightstand. A small glass and water bottle rested upon it. After pouring some of the water into the blue container, Ken carefully carried it over to me. Instead of letting me take it, he helped me drink the water. It was probably better that way. Although I could still use one of my arms, my whole body was trembling from the pain and I would have most likely spilled at least half of it. ''Why don't you read me one of the books you have taken from Otou-san's cabinet?''

Luckily, Mother had decided to 'teach' us how to read. I had already learned everything once before, but Ken with his love for books needed someone who could teach him. Had she not done it, then I might have tried teaching him myself. However, it would have been highly suspicious and I would have had to make sure that our only parent did not find out.

There wouldn't have been any good excuse I could have told her for why I could already read.

As it was, Ken could already read a few easy things and I helped him as much as I could. Telling him a few of the unknown words wasn't too dangerous, I just couldn't do it too often.

Settling down besides me, Ken pulled out a thin book from under his pillow. A metallic blue glimmered in the morning sunlight and vanished as soon as my brother opened the novel. I glimpsed the head of a dragon at the first page and then came the first chapter.

Shakily, my brother started to read the first chapter. His words were slow and unsure, sometimes he read a word twice or thrice to make sure it was right. It was also clear that he did not know all the kanji and hiragana. Ken filled the spaces he couldn't read with his own imagination and formed a tale about a dragon and his friendship with a human.

The soothing words calmed me slightly, but the pain never truly disappeared. Ignoring as much of it as I could, I leaned my head against the wall and tried to calm my erratic breathing.

When only about an hour later Mother entered our room with two glasses of blood and an apologetic expression on her face, I almost cried out in relief. She relocated my shoulder before I was allowed to drink some of the heavenly substance and rubbed my back soothingly when I finally did.

Kaneki Akemi was both my _tormentor_ and _savior._

And sometimes I both loved and hated her in equal measures.

* * *

More than once had I told my brother not to leave our room when Mother invited a _guest_ into our home.

I always tried to distract him with small meaningless games or exhaust him so that he would fall asleep. Being a child made him susceptible to my 'manipulations' and ensured his safety.

That is, until one night I fell asleep before he did and Lady Luck once again decided to disregard me. A man, about forty years old, entered our home with our mother while I was still trapped in my dreams.

The usual routine begun. Mother gave the man some of our strongest sake and turned on some music in the living room. Her bedroom was already prepared for our guest, plastic foil covered the whole floor. Should her victim have asked about its purpose, she would have probably claimed that we were planning to paint the walls.

But I doubted that he even had the time to ask.

When I was still asleep, Ken used my inattention and slipped out of the room. I could only guess that he followed the sound of the music into the living room which was at that time only occupied by the stranger, mother having left for the bathroom.

It was one of the stranger's inquiries that awoke me.

''Well, aren't you just a cute little thing?'' He had purred and my skin crawled in disgust. ''Perhaps you would like to join us.''

I bolted out of my bed and quickly made my way into the other room. Arriving there at the same time as Mother opened the door of our bathroom, I hastily walked towards my brother.

The man was kneeing before him, his dirty hand reaching out to touch my twin. Before it could make contact, I slapped it away with my own hand and pulled my brother behind me.

''Another one. Keiko did not tell me about you.'' This time he grabbed a strand of my hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. ''You wanna play a game with your mother and me?''

A disgusted sneer appeared on my lips and I had to force myself to stay calm as to not aggravate him unnecessarily. ''It's bedtime now. We need to leave and sleep.''

The man chuckled softly, his dark hair falling onto his forehead and shadowing one of his eyes. ''But...''

''They won't be _playing_ with us.'' Mother hissed softly from the doorway. Her gaze never left the man as she spoke to us. ''Rei, Ken, go into your room now and close the door.''

Just this once not even Ken tried to argue with our mother's decision. Hand in hand, we left the living room and entered our own quarters as quickly as possible. I closed the door from the inside with a key and leaned my body heavily against it.

This whole situation could have had a _terrible_ end. Had I not woken up when I did and Mother appeared so quickly, I dreaded to think about what would have happened then.

Relived, I watched how my brother laid down in his bed and fell asleep after some time. Afterwards I proceeded to listen to the happenings in the rest of our home.

Needless to say, the man suffered a _painful_ death, his cries muffled by something being forced into his mouth.

For once I fully agreed with Kaneki Akemi's actions.

Not long after that Mother started closing the door of our room from the outside for the night.

* * *

 **I have published a new Tokyo Ghoul Self-Insert! This time my protagonist is reborn as Juuzou's twin.**


	10. Set In Stone

_Some of you might have noticed that I have started editing 'Metempsychosis'. I have done my best to correct all of my mistakes and hopefully this story is now as good as it can be without me rewriting the whole thing._

 _Apparently, deleting a chapter shows up as an update. I am truly sorry if anyone was happy about this or the previous supposed update. Chapter one and two as well as ten and eleven have been put together, that's why I needed to delete some things._

 _Anyway, I haven't really changed anything when it comes to the plot. There are a few more sentences describing Rei's death, but the rest were just some grammatical or spelling mistakes, so you don't really have to read the whole story anew._

 _nariai_

* * *

 **So, I've published two new stories. One of the is SI!femSkull into KHR! and the other will be a collection of oneshots from the same fandom. Check them out!  
**

 **I have to warn you that I actually haven't planned for this chapter to end up like that. It was meant to be longer, so I hope that it doesn't seem too rushed.**

 **Please leave a review.  
**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. Self-Insert**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

 _Chapter 10_

 _Set In Stone_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where Time Did Not Stand Still  
_

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 _"One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else."_  
 _― K.L. Toth_

* * *

Coffee was the only human nutrient ghouls could enjoy. Many wondered why that was, but none had found the answer yet.

The beverage tasted just as bitter as I remembered, though I did like it more than I used to. In my previous life I had tasted coffee only a handful of times and always with copious amounts of sugar and milk.

Here, where I had only three drinks to choose from—water, blood and black coffee—any reluctance I might have felt due to the memories of my previous life changed into a wide-eyed eagerness to finally try something that did not possess the lingering taste of blood.

And it turned out that although the coffee Mother bought for us wasn't the best drink in the entire world, it was still something I could appreciate. Perhaps I would find a better brand in the future, but for now the one Mother preferred would be good enough for us.

The way a ghouls body worked was quite curious. We could not stomach anything but human flesh and coffee. I could easily admit that if I had the chance, then I would have chosen tea as the only beverage I could drink in this new life—Alcohol did not sound all that bad either just about now, but I did not wish to become an alcoholic.—so I was a little upset due to the fact that there wasn't even an explanation for this phenomenon.

I also doubted that anyone was truly researching something like that. Most ghouls were illiterate and human scientists were busy, searching for new ways to kill and eradicate my kind.

Maybe it was naive of me to think like this, but I truly did not understand why _no one_ even wanted to find a peaceful resolution for the conflict between humans and ghouls. They all just preferred slaughtering each other until one kind became extinct.

Considering the fact that there were way more humans in the world than ghouls, I had no doubts about how this situation would end some day if nothing changed.

Like everything else in the world, the humans would _destroy_ us.

 _(When had I stopped seeing myself as one of them?)_

And when that finally happened, they would find another group they could direct their hate on. It was a sad cycle that would probably _never_ end.

Ken and I, we stood with one foot in each world, always there and yet never truly a part of either of them. But I did have to admit that if I had to choose, then I would say I was a _ghoul._

A few years ago such a thought would have been completely inconceivable to me, but times had changed... _I had changed._

(...Eight years in this world did not leave me without scars...

...

...there was a _hate_ in me that had not always been there... some days it seemed to be the only thing driving me forward...

...

...Oftentimes, when I was at my own _mother's_ mercy, a certain viciousness seemed to take a hold of my heart, squeezing it until...

...until I felt like...

...

... _murdering her.)_

Accepting that one of my deepest and _darkest_ desires just happened to be committing matricide wasn't something easily done.

Especially because I did _love_ my mother.

Loving someone shouldn't have felt like rubbing salt into a fresh wound, however, it was the way I loved Kaneki Akemi. She was the one person I feared the most in this world as well as the only adult I could trust.

In her own way, Akemi loved the both of us as well, of that I was sure.

I had to be, otherwise, I would have given up a long time ago and let my more instinctual side take over. It would have been incredibly easy to let the itch in my lower back develop into something more. A kagune similar to that of my father could have easily put an end to Mother's reign of terror.

At the beginning, the images of my mother's blood on my hands and her sweet flesh inside my mouth had filled me with an immeasurable guilt. And yet, those feelings of self-loathing and regret seemed to lessen with each wound inflicted upon Ken's or my body.

As the years passed I was forced to realize that this woman wasn't just my mother anymore, but also one of the biggest _monsters_ I had ever met.

 _(...That would change very soon. In this world there were monsters far worse than Kaneki Akemi..._

 _..._

 _...and one day I would end up being one of them...)_

Unfortunately, that did not erase the memory of her gentle touches and reassuring words. No matter what she did, I could never forget the sacrifices she had made for both of her children and the fate she now suffered because of us.

Despite all she had done, Kaneki Akemi would always be our _mother._

She would always be the woman who gave birth to me, took care of me, showed me affection with the simplest of actions and most importantly gifted me with my sweet _brother._

''Rei?'' Whispered Ken softly as he grabbed my slightly torn sleeve. ''You're wasting the blood.''

My gaze immediately focused on the blood trailing down his left arm towards his wrist and finally pooling on the palm of his hand. Mother had another one of her tantrums that day and I hadn't fully managed to shield Ken. He had a deep gash on his upper-arm that was slowly leaking blood.

In the last few years we had both learned that _food_ was not to be wasted, be it human or ghoul. As Mother did not give us enough to eat, we had to find other ways.

Each time one of us was too grievously injured, the relatively healthy one would _donate_ some blood. At first I had not wanted to feed on my own twin, but I quickly learned that there was no other way. If I did not take those few sips of blood in some situation, this second life of mine might have already ended.

Besides, if one of us was already bleeding, there couldn't be anything truly wrong about not wanting to squander our precious life liquid.

Our healing rate suffered due to malnutrition and I needed the blood to repair my two broken fingers.

Lowering my head, I closed my eyes and gently put my lips on the palm of his hand. The liquid was still warm and tasted more heavenly than anything I had ever eaten before. Veins appeared under my eye and I slowly worked my way up to the actual wound. As my fingers healed I found comfort in the fact that I still felt... _disgusted with myself._

If there was one person in this world that I never wanted to consider as food, then it certainly was Kaneki Ken.

(...for us there was no purer form of cannibalism...

...

...by eating each other we were committing an unforgivable act, but it wasn't as if we had another choice...

...and the truth was that no matter whom we ate, due to our halfbreed nature we were _always_ practicing cannibalism...)

That, of course, did not stop me from enjoying my special _meal._

When regular meals were non-existent, one tended to enjoy anything one got. And my brother, no matter how much I hated myself for admitting it, tasted _delicious._

Moreover, if I was going to pay for something with my own sanity, then I might as well enjoy it at least a little bit.

* * *

I never thought that that my first murder victim would end up being my aunt.

(...though murder might have been a too _nice_ word...

...

... _slaughter_ was the more fitting term...)

When she appeared at our home for first time, asking our mother for money, I was too weary and _frightened_ to even think about protesting. I just stood there, hidden by the small closet in our hallway, and watched the foreign woman plead for money.

Asaoka Makoto looked remarkably similar to our mother. They shared their coloring and some facial features, the only differences being the shape of their noses and length of their hair.

It was hard to judge which sister was the most cruel one. Was it Akemi, who in the darkness of her own home stole her children's childhood, or Makoto, the woman that would indirectly kill her own sister for a few yen?

At the end, I did not care enough to find out.

I just silently observed their exchange from my hiding spot and contemplated how long it would take Mother to off herself.

A year or two, she would not last longer.

Despite having just acknowledged that Akemi would most likely die before our tenth birthday, I felt completely _numb._ Perhaps, once upon a time, I might have wanted to save her. Nowadays, I did not even think about doing something so foolish.

As I could not save us from our mother, she would have to do it herself.

 _(...it would be the ultimate proof of her love for us...)_

After that first visit, seeing our aunt became almost a weekly occurrence. She would appear in the early morning or very late in the evening, always _demanding_ more money. It was inevitable that Akemi had to find another job.

The few hours she spent at home became even sparser and our stomachs emptier with each passing month. I had severely underestimated her dedication to Makoto or mayhap it was just her desire to avoid us at all cost. While our newest situation had the benefit of less beatings, it also introduced us to a completely new form of torture.

 _Starvation._

All of a sudden, we were forced to taste what not receiving any food for longer periods of time truly meant. Our stomachs knotted themselves together and our bodies lost all of their strength. With each week that passed without a meal, we became a little more tired.

Mother, bless her damned soul, decided to take some pity on us when she noticed that our ribs were slowly becoming visible.

Sometimes, I wondered how she managed to survive in a house with two starved ghoul children. More often than not, I considered it to be a heinous miracle.

Our life continued this way for two years. Practically imprisoned in our home, Ken and I watched the world through the television and when even that was taken from us due to unpaid bills, we found some freedom inside of books. Father had his private library in our apartment and I was grateful for that.

Had it not been for all those novels, then I might have actually gone insane.

Frankly, I probably already was.

During those two years Mother's tantrums became rarer―Even she was tired from our current lifestyle.―and our ribs and bones more pronounced. It was impossible to tell which years of our childhood had been worse. Those before or after our aunt came into our life, both were a possibility.

But by time I found our mother _dead_ in the living room, I could not even force myself to _care_ anymore. I just closed the door of what had once been our nursery and silently padded into the room Mother's lifeless body was occupying. Then I sat down next to her corpse and contemplated what to do next.

If I did not take care of the body soon, its decaying smell would attract the neighbor's attention.

There was also my twin to consider. What would I tell him? Okaa-san is in heaven now?

(...what a joke...)

I could not expect a ten years old boy to comprehend the severity of our situation. Kaneki Akemi was dead and that meant that we now had no adult caretaker. Unlike the fictional Kaneki, we could not live with our aunt. Not only because she was a psychotic bitch and pathological liar, but also because we were not _human._

Makoto would most likely call the CCG the moment she found out the truth about us.

For a second I considered finding Anteiku, however, I quickly gave up on that. Considering our current location, we would have to pass through at least three if not four wards to get there. Due to our sheltered life, I wouldn't even know how to begin such a journey. Which wards would be safer for us? Those with a high ghoul population or CCG influence?

And as if all that wasn't enough, I had no idea whether Anteiku even existed in this world or when it would be opened. Traveling such a long distance without a proper reason that would provide us with a secure home would be foolish.

What obligation did the manager have to us?

The pitter-patter of Ken's small feet alerted me to his presence. Immediately, I bolted upright and sprinted out of the living room, closing its door behind me. Leaning my body heavily against it, I sighed loudly.

There was a hesitant pause in my brother's steps. Then he opened the door of our room and greeted me with a cautious smile.

''Did something happen?''


	11. I Wanna Scream, I Wanna Shout

**Please leave a review.  
**

 **Summary:** **About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]**

 **Have fun.**

* * *

 _Chapter 11  
_

 _I Wanna Scream, I Wanna Shout_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _How A Story Progressed  
_

* * *

 _"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."_  
 _― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars_

* * *

''Did something happen?''

Ken was standing before me, his eyes wide and forehead creased with worry. Although he was just a child, my brother still saw more than most. Most probably this had something to do with the way we were raised. The fear we constantly lived with.

Either way, Kaneki Ken was not an innocent child, no matter how much I wished it to be otherwise. My twin had seen too much in his short life and that left him scarred in ways even I wasn't.

''Yes.'' I did not have it in me to lie to him. ''Something did happen.''

Ken bit his lip. ''Where is Kaa-san?''

Pushing myself away from the living room door, I grimaced slightly. Almost hesitantly, I walked up to my brother and took his hand into mine. ''Let's go into our room. I'll explain everything there.''

And that was exactly what we did. Together, we entered our room and sat down on my bed. There I breathed shakily and tried to smile softly at my brother. No appropriate words came to my mind, so chose to just try explaining everything as fast as I could. ''Kaa-san has had to leave us, Ken.''

''Leave us?'' questioned my brother, confusion evident in his voice.

''Yes, Kaa-san had to leave us.'' I said while tightening my hold on his hand. ''She did not have a choice, Ken. If she could have, I am certain that Kaa-san would have stayed with us. Never doubt that she _loved_ you.''

When we were younger and our father was still alive, Mother had certainly loved us. Nowadays, probably not so much, but Ken did not need to know that.

''Where is she?'' He was trembling, his gaze wandering across the whole room.

I gulped. ''She is at a better place now. Happy.''

 _Never before had a lie tasted so bitter._

* * *

Ultimately, we did not have much of a choice. It was either packing a few essentials and running or taking care of our dead mother's body. I knew that the latter was not a permanent solution, but I wanted to stay in the safety of our home for as long as possible. Although staying with our aunt would have been horrible, I slowly came to realize that it would have probably been better than what our future now had in store for us.

We could not go to an orphanage, neither could we live with any of our human relatives. There was no one from our father's side of the family whom we knew. Anteiku was as uncertain as the rest of our existence and I did not even know how to cross through one ward to another. Even if I did, there would still be the danger of actually surviving the other wards.

Our current home district did not belong to the truly bad ones. The ghoul population here wasn't too large, yet it still represented a huge danger to our continuing existence. Just as the CCG did.

Considering that to reach Anteiku we would have to cross a few of the worst wards, I believed that our survival chances would be higher on our own. Especially because I couldn't even be sure that the cafe exited here.

This world might have been similar to the one I had once read about, but it wasn't entirely the same. The biggest and most obvious difference was that Kaneki Ken wasn't _human._

A difference that would change the whole plot of our story.

 _(...A wish that would never come true...)_

With each passing day we seemed to get farther and farther away from how Ken's life was supposed to be. I did not know whether the original Akemi had also abused her son or if this was a change caused by our heritage. Perhaps the other Ken had at least been spared this tragedy, though such thoughts could also be just the hopes of a fool.

Either way, both versions of my brother had not and would not have happy lives.

That was a certainty we could not escape.

And with my choice I would only manage to prolong our moment of reprieve before the horrors of this world finally reached us.

After sending Ken into our room and turning on the TV loudly, I walked back towards our mother's still body. Her head rested on the low table in our living room, mouth slightly parted and eyes closed. She looked peaceful and if it weren't for the coldness of her skin, then I might have actually believed that she was just asleep.

As it was, I could smell the death in our living room and feel the lack of warmth her body should be emanating. Soon, our mother's corpse would start decaying and the smell would certainly attract unwanted attention.

There was only one way to stop such an outcome and I had to force myself to move before severity of my current situation truly reached me. Later, I would have enough time for a panic attack.

With a trembling hand I brushed a few dark locks off Akemi's face. Obviously, there was no reaction. No twitch that would indicate that she had actually felt anything.

 _Our mother was dead._

My hands wandered towards her shoulders and then underneath her armpits. For a second I was relieved that Ken had not chosen to use or lock himself inside the bathroom. He had not even protested when I accompanied him to our room and left him there by himself.

As I could not start ripping Akemi's body into smaller parts in our living room, I needed to move it into our shower. That was the only place which could be cleaned afterwards easily enough. A blood soaked carpet was not something I wanted to deal with. I did not need to add another problem such as a crime scene that would be seen through the window to my already rather long list.

While heaving Akemi's upper-body from the table, I tried to ignore the loud beating of my heart. It was pounding loudly and causing me a headache.

Gently, I laid Akemi on the floor, her face pointing towards the roof. Hesitating just for a moment, I took a hold of her hands and pulled. Had I been a normal child, I probably would not have been capable of moving her body farther than two steps. As a hybrid I possessed more strength than a human child. This was very fortunate because I actually manage to drag Akemi's body to the middle of our hallway before I needed to take a break.

It was dark outside and I had not dared to turn any light on. Though most people in our apartment complex only seemed to care about themselves and their own lives, there were still a few slightly too curious neighbors who could pose a threat should they chose to look inside our home through the window. Keeping the lights off would ensure that no one could truly see what was happening inside.

My arms hurt from exertion and yet I did not have the time to stop and rest. Even if no neighbors could see what I was doing, there was still my brother I had to worry about. He might have followed my instructions and stayed inside our room until now, but that could be changed by a childish whim any second.

Almost unwillingly, I continued dragging Akemi down the hallway. It slid easily across the wooden floorboards, missing a cabinet by only a few millimeters. Mother's head lolled from side to side, her mouth now open and showing her teeth.

Reaching the bathroom, I pushed the door open and closed it once we were both inside. The last step of my grand plan was harder to fulfill than I had expected. Dragging my mother's body through our home turned out to be easier than heaving it into the shower.

I did not give up until I managed to do that as well, of course. I raised Akemi's body into the shower and leaned her back against the wall. My hands shook once I let go of her and an unexpected sob escaped my lips.

Perhaps I should have not been surprised by tears that started streaming down my cheeks. Perhaps this was something inevitable. And yet I still found myself surprised by the fact that I was capable of mourning the _monster_ that had been my mother. That I was capable of crying for _her._

By now, I should have felt no affection for that woman.

 _But I did._

Despite all the things she had done to us, a part of me would always love Akemi or at least the woman she had once been.

With thin fingers I bound my tangled hair into a loose bun. I knew what I had to do now. First, I had to go to the kitchen and find some plastic bags. Then I would have to come back to the bathroom and take care of Akemi's body. A knife from the kitchen would certainly be helpful. Once the body was divided into small enough parts I would stuff them into the plastic bags. Our fridge should have enough free place for the whole body.

All things considered, the plan wasn't all that bad. We were _free_ now and our mother would keep us fed for at least a month.

And yet, not even the thought of no abuse and no empty stomachs made the realization of my plan any easier.

A part of me wondered how much my following actions would actually _cost_ me.

 _How much would I have to pay for mutilating and eating my own mother?_

* * *

Our aunt came to visit us not even a week after Akemi died. The woman knocked on the door and waited for a few minutes. When she noticed that no one would be opening it for her, she left. One day later Makoto came once again and was forced to leave with the same results.

Not once did I even consider opening the door for her. Mother was dead and there was nothing we could give the rancid woman. Besides, I did not want to risk her storming into our home and finding something that she should not.

What I sadly did not consider was that our aunt knew where our spare key was located. I never thought that she would manage to enter our apartment during _dinner._ Neither did I ever think that she would find me with her sister's finger sticking out of my mouth.

Unsurprisingly, the woman screamed loudly, her bag falling onto the floor and hands moving towards her face. ''Oh kami, _what_ the hell are you?!''

It did not take her long to find an answer to her own question and by the time she did, the woman was already turning towards the door of our apartment.

What happened next was an instinctual reaction. I knew that if Makoto managed to leave our apartment, both Ken and I would be dead. The woman would show us no mercy. She would certainly report us to the CCG. We would be hunted through the whole ward and there was no chance that we would actually manage to escape professional ghoul investigators. If they caught us, they would kill us or do something even _worse._

That knowledge alone made me act and move faster than I ever had before. I jumped over our living room table and threw myself after her. Through luck I managed to catch one of her legs and we both tumbled onto the ground.

A second later I register a burning pain on my head and realized that the woman had actually kicked me.

''Let go! Let go of me, you little _monster!''_ Over and over again her left leg connected with my face. At some point I heard a loud crunching sound and pain exploded on my face. Blood spurted from my broken nose and unbidden tears trailed down my now bloodied cheeks.

I had to stop her screams, that was the last thought I had before my back seemed to be almost literary ripped open. A familiar tentacle sprouted from my lower back and moved towards Makoto with a lightning fast speed.

A single kagune stabbed her head.

 _The screams ceased._


	12. No Home Left

**So,** ** _Queen Mo-Freaking_** **has put together a piece of fanart of Rei and Ken. It's really good and you can find it on her DeviantArt account under the name Ap3x-Phantom.**

 **Please leave a review.**

 **Summary: About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I was screwed. Second, I somehow got reborn as the twin sister of Kaneki Ken. And third, the world was wrong. [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]**

 **Enjoy**

* * *

 _Chapter 12_

 _No Home Left_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where She Faced An Uncertain Future_

* * *

 _"My life was a wandering; I never had a homeland. It was a matter of being constantly tossed about, without rest; nowhere and never did I find a home."_  
 _― Jan Amos Komenský, Labyrint světa a ráj srdce_

* * *

Following our aunt's death, I did the only thing I considered to be logical. Together with Ken, I dragged her body into our shower and repeated a by now unfortunately familiar procedure.

Once her body was finally divided into small parts, I stuffed it into our fridge, went back into our bathroom and threw up into our toilette.

Ken stood behind me, holding back my hair and looking mournfully at my wasted meal.

His reaction was morbid enough to make me laugh hysterically. ''Don't worry, we've got another one to eat now.''

(...wisely, I ignored the fact that we were looking at the regurgitated remains of our _mother...)_

Ken hummed and regarded me with worry in his eyes. ''Are you alright now?''

Was I alright? Well, I had just killed someone for the first time and probably done the whole world a huge favor in the process. Still, that did not change the fact that I had taken someone's life and perhaps sentenced them to a fate similar to my own.

Makoto was our aunt and one of the worst human beings I had ever met. But she was also a wife and mother, the latter being something that almost made me feel something akin regret.

I had not wanted to bereft some kid of his mother.

''Rei?'' questioned my brother, his hand moving towards my sweaty forehead. ''I...come on, you should probably lie down.''

With some difficulty he helped me stand up. Afterwards Ken half dragged me into our room and helped me lie down in the bed.

By now I should have been desensitized when in came to death. I should not have cared about killing our psychotic aunt. Unfortunately, knowing that I should not do something did not immediately make it real.

Makoto had been a horrible human who most likely deserved what fate had bestowed upon her, but did that actually give me the right to _murder_ her? Who was I to judge whether she was deserving of death or not?

I knew that my sentiments did not matter at the end. Had I not done what I did, then Ken and I would have been hunted by the CCG by now. Makoto would have ran from our apartment and informed the whole world of our true identity.

 _We would have been dead within a few days._

That knowledge did not erase the bitter taste from my tongue. Neither did it make me feel any better about the added moniker of ' _murderer'_ to my name.

At the age of ten, I was a murderous cannibal.

 _What would become of me in the future?_

Lying in my bed and staring at the ceiling, I decided that the answer to that question was 'nothing good'.

* * *

There was one positive aspect to living in a world infested by ghouls - though, that was probably a matter of perspective - and it was that human disappearances were nothing unusual. As long as the victim wasn't a child or someone socially important, the police did not look properly for them.

After all, eight out of ten people who disappeared in Tokyo ended up being ghoul victims. Most of the time, there wasn't even a body left to be found.

The police rarely saw the meaning in searching for someone who had been already devoured by a ghoul. Why search for someone who did not even leave any remains?

It wasn't hard to understand why most disappearance cases were rarely properly taken care of. After three days the victims were declared to be dead if there was no evidence against this claim.

From what I knew, the last known location of the victim was often given to the CCG. The doves then used it to find out more about ghoul territories and their hunting grounds.

Still, Ken and I were pretty lucky when it came to our rather precarious situation. No police officer showed up at our door for more than a week. When a pair of them finally came to us and knocked at the entrance of our apartment - it hadn't been our home for a long while now - I had already decided what our next course of action would be.

In the last few days, I had been checking our post meticulously to see how many of our bills were unpaid. I had hoped that our mother had paid the rent for our apartment before she died, so that we could stay inside of it for at least another week or two before someone came to us and demanded money. By the time that happened, we both would have been gone.

Of course I had considered the police's involvement as well. The truth was that I had hoped that they would not investigate our aunts disappearance at all. Naturally, I knew that this was the hope of a fool, but I still prayed that we would at least be free of this burden.

Alas, life rarely went the way I wanted it to.

The appearance of two police officers wasn't surprising but rather disappointing. After our aunts rather _unfortunate_ death, I had done my best to explain our situation to Ken. Trying to shield him would have been a futile effort on my part, so I did not even try to sugarcoat our situation.

I also did my best to impart to him the importance of not opening our door for anyone. Like this I made sure that Ken stayed completely silent the moment we noticed someone's presence outside our apartment. We both just listened nervously how two men knocked on our door and then decided that they would come back later because obviously _no one was there._

A sigh of relief escaped my lips once I heard them leave.

''Alright,'' I said and brushed a few stray locks of my hair behind my ear. ''Alright, we're fine for now, but we...we really need to pack our bags and _leave.''_

My brother bit his lip nervously. ''Where will we be going?''

And wasn't that just a fantastic question? The problem was that I had no idea where a pair of orphaned hybrids could go. We had no family that could take us in and I doubted that there was a ghoul orphanage anywhere in Tokyo. The state would not help us due to our half-breed nature and Anteiku wasn't really an option either.

There were no profitable options left for us and I was aware that in only a few hours we both would end up being _homeless._ No matter how much I wanted to avoid it, Ken and I would soon be forced to live on the cruel streets of Tokyo.

The rather pessimistic part of me wondered for how long we would survive such a thing, though I tried to push such thoughts to the farthest corners of my mind. This was neither the right time nor the right place to start despairing.

''I don't know,'' I answered honestly. ''Why don't you go and find some bags we could use in Tou-san's and Kaa-san's bedroom, hmm? Meanwhile I'll start preparing all our necessities.''

Ken nodded his head in weary acceptance. ''Sure. Should I get Tou-san's notebook as well?''

It took me a second to realize which book he was talking about. Afterwards I turned my gaze towards my brother and silently thanked him for remembering such an important detail. ''Yes. We might need it in the future.''

We left our kitchen side by side and our paths parted next to the entrance to our room. While Ken continued walking towards our parents bedroom, I stepped over the threshold and into the room that had belonged to us since we were born. There I was forced to start searching for the things we would take with us.

Three changes of clothes for each of us were laid down on our beds. Next came a blanket and toothbrushes. Almost reluctantly, I added a picture of our family that was taken before everything went to hell.

My brother entered the room somewhere along the line and started packing all the things I laid out onto the beds into two backpacks.

''I think I found the last book Tou-san read. It still got a bookmark between the pages,'' muttered Ken after we finished packing our clothes.

I tilted my head to the side and saw him holding what I presumed to be our father's notebook in his right hand and a novel in his left. My lips twisted in a bitter smile when I discerned its title.

 _The Black Goat's Egg by Takatsuki Sen._

Sighing, I put my toothbrush into a small pocket on the backpack's side. ''If you want to, you can take it with you. But I won't be the one hauling it with me.''

''Alright.'' He paused. ''Will you help me read it?''

I was reluctant to utter an affirmation, but it would have been unfair of me to keep this last piece of our father from him. As such, I just nodded almost imperceptibly, grabbed my backpack and started walking to the kitchen.

There was still a quite huge amount of our... _aunt_ in the fridge. Taking all of the remaining _food_ with us would be impossible, but we could still pack a meal for tomorrow or the day after. The temperature outside was cool enough so that the meat would need a while to unfreeze and get bad. Even then it would still take some time until it was completely inedible for us.

Ghoul physiques differed greatly from those of humans. Our bodies were more durable, even when it came to digesting our meals. Bacteria and fungi weren't as dangerous to us as they were to humans. The high Rc factor ghouls had ensured that they almost never got sick and even if they did, the sickness passed very quickly.

Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of eating putrid meat, but it was still better than having nothing in our stomachs.

Thus, I did not hesitate to pack as much meat as I could into two plastic boxes. It would weight us down heavily and also keep us fed for a while.

In my opinion, the benefits outweighed the disadvantages.

Once the boxes with our provisions were packed, I moved towards the sink and opened the small cabinet underneath it. Akemi had never touched the money our father had gathered after his hunts. Now, I considered her hesitance to be a blessing.

The metallic box I retrieved from underneath the sink was full to the brim. When winter came, Ken and I could buy ourselves jackets and warmer clothes with the money.

Deciding that it wasn't wise to keep the money in one backpack - just in case that someone managed to steal it from us or we would lose it on the run - I divided it and put half of the bills into Ken's bag and the other half in mine.

 _We were ready to go._

Before I could question my decision, I swung my backpack onto my back and grabbed a hold of my twin's hand. ''Come on, we have to go.''

''I see.'' There was a sadness in his eyes that I never wanted to see there.

I squeezed his hand. ''We will build ourselves another _home.''_

(...this apartment hadn't been our _home_ for a long time now anyway...

...

...the happy memories it had once held were thoroughly _tarnished_ by our mother's _violence_...)

''Yes.'' His shoulders squared in determination as he squeezed my hand back. ''Yes, we will.''

Without looking back, we stepped out of the apartment, leaving our past behind along with it.


End file.
